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Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?
6

Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
Having recently completed a psychology degree to balance my engineering education, I am trying to gain a better understanding of the whole 'soft skills' debate surrounding engineers. In recent years the concept of Emotional Intelligence has been sweeping through the HR scene and I'm wondering if anyone out there has had any exposure to it and indeed whether you think it has any relevance to engineers in the workplace at all?

(For those of you in the know about EI, I have to make the distinction though that I have a distinct preference for the ability-based Mayer-Salovey-Caruso approach to EI and not the popularised Daniel Goleman or the Bar-On EQi versions of EI.)


RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Answer is 'of course', as in most other working areas.

If you turn the question around, and define EI as 'the ability to communicate and interact with other people in a best possible way' you would , also within engineering, find areas or jobs where this is less important, or weighing far less in toto, than being able to communicate the technical aspects of the engineering job.

(You may want to take a look at my thread 'New trend? Missing technical descriptions!' below.)

Beeing a 'humanist inclined' engineer, I believe although that high technical knowledge generally should weigh much more in engineering than high EI, - but all depending on 'the right person for the job at hand'. A high grade of both does not hurt....

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

it's all well and good talking technical terms with an engineer, but we also have to talk to non-technical people (the ones with the money) too !  I suspect that we, like most people, like to stay in our comfort zone (dealing with numbers and facts rather than feelings).

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

I sometimes feel purple, but don't know how to express it, so I do a flow calculation and I feel better.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

I recently took some Human Growth and Development classes and Emotional Intellegence was part of that.

Go read some of the threads in this section the other work related topics and you will see a lot of negativity by engineers toward engineering. I am starting to think that negativity is a part of standard engineering behavior, which certainly effects how engineers relate to each other and to non engineers...

-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!

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RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

2
I assert that engineers actually possess a normal range of soft skills, but they may _appear_ emotionally underdeveloped,
...  because their math and physics skills are stronger or more practiced, or
...  because they may under- react to emotional stress because  emotional reaction is not a productive use of time, and they have been trained to treat every situation as an exercise in efficient use of resources, or
...  because they choose to amuse themselves by jerking around the psych majors who show up to 'measure' them.


Their _political_ skills may be in fact be underdeveloped, because they find political processes abhorrent, and because they have other things to do.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

I subscribe to the idea that ultimately no human does anything until they feel emotionally right about it.

There are no logical people. It's not an original idea, I don't know who is credited with recording it first.

One of the things training, education and experience gives you is a process to execute that gets you to a point where you feel OK about doing something.

Ever had a project you just didn't feel right about releasing until you checked it one more time.

There is no way to avoid emotion in human affairs. Hence the value of the Red Hat in Six Thinking Hats.

That's how I understand why some of us are religious and some of us are not too. We are all illogical in different ways, engineer or not.

Many commercials work because they circumvent factual data to get you to an emotional place.

Welcome to the human race.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

"There are no logical people"

kontiki99, are you being logical when you say this?

If you aren't being logical, then perhaps that isn't a logical statement at all.

If you are being logical, then you've just defeated your own statement.

Just askin'

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

No, I'm just as messed up as everyone else.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

nice to know that when you meet the HR - human resource for a promotion, recruitment or termination they will talk to you about

emotional intelligence, for the job,
cultural fit
team player skills
coomunication skills ( OOPS I made a spealing mistake!)

and all other highech language

I wonder if FORD when he setup his car making business was talking in the some terms?

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
Wow y'all, What a range of responses!
Many of you have hit some interesting issues but first I think it might help if I explain how I came to this subject.

As a female engineer I was encased for years in a web of feminist thinking to engineering i.e. there should be more women in engineering, we'd make a real difference to society, if only we had the chance to bring all the girls off to an island somewhere and inspire them to become engineers with construction kits blah blah etc... etc....
Sound familiar to anyone???
It was only as a lecturer that I became involved in the recruitment frontline and then reality started to kick in. When you are regularly faced with classes of over 100 girls and about 90% of them are looking at you with glazed eyes as you give your 'what I love about engineering speech', you start to wonder what is really going on.
It was only when I heard the term 'male brained female' that I shouted EUREKA!!! This comes from some work done by an English guy Simon Baron Cohen who proposes that Men on average are hardwired for systemising and Women on average are hardwired for empathy. While everyone has bits of both (as many of you have commented), its interesting to look at overlaps e.g. you can have a female brained male (male nurse) and a male brained female (female engineer).
This concept has really struck a chord with me and I think it really takes the wind out of the whole feminist approach to gender imbalance in engineering, when it was quite obvious to me that it is not the average girl who is attracted to engineering.
Needless to say, my recruitment days are numbered as political correctness based on misinterpretations about gender imbalance versus gender equality hold sway!

So us male-brained-engineering types have obvious talents for systemising- which is the drive to analyse, explore and construct a system, our IF I DO THIS THEN THAT WILL HAPPEN approach. This is our comfort zone (thanks rb1857)but it is at the expense to a greater or lesser degree of our empathy skills (sorry to contradict you Mike). Empathy then has links to Emotional Intelligence.
(by the way, at the extreme point of systemising you get people-blind Autistics,think Rain Man)

Going back to the engineer, no one is denying that we are emotional (right with ya there Kontiki99) and indeed we don't really know the half of how our emotions are unconsciously filtering our decision making technical and otherwise (see Damasio's Descartes Error, emotion reason and the human brain) but I think we are in the throes of the humanist guru dominating general thinking (sorry Gerhardl) and this influences how engineers are perceived and at HR level how we are interviewed/assessed/promoted.

What engineers like to do most is engineer. We are focused on thinking practically and if we make/design something for what we think is for the good of humanity then we think they should be grateful for the advantages it provides (e.g. communication/travel/health benefits) and get a realistic grip on the disadvantages (e.g. moneywise, fumeswise,astheticswise etc). We don't come across as all socially motivated and socially caring because I don't think its our primary motivation. We do what is in tune with our wiring and thats just how it is
e.g we went to the moon just because we could, spent all those billions, and brought back the teflon frying pan!

So when we get employed by an engineer firm to supposedly do what we do best we can be targeted by the humanist training of 'talking' ourselves into better people skills. None of you mentioned being exposed to MSCEIT but as an ability test, I think it is a more logical (sorry Kontiki99) approach to TEST someone on their skills rather than relying on them to fill out a questionnaire and accept when they SAY they are good at it. I think there are EI skills that can be taught to suit the engineering mindset e.g. recognising the patterns of faces rather than spending afternoons rolling around the floor getting in touch with our inner child.

Anyway,once you have gone to a couple of training sessions and talked the talk, your technical skills can all too soon become undervalued by the singular approach to promotion of engineers followed by the majority of companies i.e. towards people management...team leaders, the next engineering manager etc. So 'Pat' might well be a great engineer but put him managing people and you can have all hell breaking loose under the stress of end of quarter (despite all the training). But on the outside, he's an engineer who's climbing the corporate ladder. Is this how I am to define the most successful engineer to engineering students?
Am I to tell them that they cannot get ahead without gaining a good comptetence in practical EI skills?
Probably. Perhaps I will use my reseach to actually get some real data together on this as I really wonder about that elusive engineering animal out there; the highly technical engineer with the high EI skills.

Does this give a negative view of our emotional intelligence SMS? I think we are all so surrounded by the happy clapping guru crowd that a bit of realism and wanting some real data on a subject makes us sound like party poopers!





RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?


Hello PaulaK!

1. I'm giving you a star for your lenghty, but thoughtprovoking note!

2. Beeing an engineer and male, I can't resist trying to summarize and 'solve' some of the questions raised, this beeing my nature..;-)

a) Everyone having experienced rising both boys and girls know there is a gender difference in approach and response to the world. I, personally, do not believe that this difference, even read as a male/female orientated brain, ought to exclude or include job satisfaction or ability to 'be an engineer' on a general basis.

b) Your definition of 'engineering' is possibly leaning towards the 'constructing' or 'problem solving' role. Engineering does not necessarily limit itself to this aspect, but will always have to include a basis of technical understanding and analytic, possibly also strategic thought process.

c) It would be very interesting to have a case study of 'successful engineers' male and female, taking a general and broad aptitude test and look at similarities and differences between sexes and compared to society in general and other job areas. I am especially thinking of Gallup's test where you sort out the 'five best' of about 35 recognizable aptitude areas. (Others ?)

d) Promotion and career male/female? This will, as for every other type of education and job, be coloured by the present status existing in the country/society/company/group you are a member of. I see no differences between engineering and other jobs though.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Engineers can't climb the corporate ladder; they have to become something else, usually by abandoning their soul.

I tried the parallel ladder, but it didn't really go anywhere.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

very interesting

from my experience the fast track line to promotion is usually for:

marketing people
finance/accounting people

and usually well ahead of engineers.

also I believe that the IE does not really applies to business owner or entreprenuer ( engineer)

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
Thanks for the star Gerhardl,
Forgive me but I'm new to this forum style of communicating and got carried away a bit!
I think we have identified an Essential Difference in our outlook though (which is the title of SB Cohens book). I don't believe that just anyone can be a true engineer. I believe that we have a distinct pattern of thinking and when we fine tune into it over the years, we become our best and most content.
So for the most technically minded engineer, the prospect of abandoning their 'soul' to try and play the corporate game is an anathema and is the parallel road to nowhere (I hear ya Mike)
(Opsops3, I'm not so sure about your fast tracker observations though as the accountants get as much bad EI press as we do!)
In my opinion, it is the more middle ground engineers who have the capacity to make it best to the top. The ones who have a good technical competence and have good EI skills, in brain terms, these are the middle brainers. Swings and roundabouts people.
My point being that it is very difficult to make a highly systemising person into a less systemising one with EI. It has to be worked into their decision making approach(e.g. 6Hats is one approach where at least it gets mentioned)


Here's an interesting test for y'all to while away a few minutes though. Apparently we have a physical indication of our level of male/female/middle brainness in the ratio of our 2nd (index) to our 4th (ring) finger. The longer your 4th is to your index the more male brained you are i.e. more systemising.
(Specific instructions for this test are part of the wider brain sex ID at http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/add_user.shtml)
Have fun!

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?


Emotional Intelligence:

Having the sense to resist the emotion of wanting to strangle the HR person that wants to give the job to the MSc that can't cross the road alone, versus the 45-year-old that knows how to do it without help.

Bill

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

2
At the risk of sounding chauvinist, I see the topic of "Emotional Intelligence" as yet another tool developed by "Human Resources" professionals to further establish themselves as an arcane priesthood within the corporate structure.

By building a new parameter to be measured, they gain a tool to solidify the necessity of their positions.  If it's something that the rest of us haven't acknowledged and they can establish its importance to their superiors, then they have gained a control over the "hard knowledge" folks, i.e., us.

Comparison?  Compare the answer to a formula like a simple question on Ohm's law to a question on one of the "personality assessment" tests so fondly regarded by the HR professional:  "I sometimes place personal goals over the goals of my team:  yes/no.  

With the first question, the answer is either right or wrong with no latitude for personal interpretation or opinion.  With the second, interpretation requires the skills of the priesthood of the HR department.  Attempts to argue the answer of the second with an HR professional will be met with tender smiles and pats on the head as you find out that he, not you, has been trained in the privy knowledge of the Inner Circle of HR.

Continuing on with my HR rant, a further factor cementing the HR position, at least here in America, is that SOMEBODY needs to devote a huge amount of time understanding and applying volumes of Federal, state and local regulations laid upon businesses by another useless group, politicians.  Failure to provide such a Priest of Arcania on one's staff leaves one open to horrendous penalty in the form of legal actions, fines and lawsuits.

Okay, I'm finished...

old field guy

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Quote:

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire." - Aristotle

Maui

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

PaulaK,

I just took that test.  When I scored a 12/12 on the last spatial reasoning test it said something like "Are you an engineer?".  At last, recognition after all these years.

Nice link though, thanks.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
Congratulations SomptingGuy!
WGJ, you have picked up a point that has become very relevant here recently in the way academic institutions seem to want everyone from computer scientists to plumbers to have PhD's in order to 'be qualified'!
OlFieldGuy, put 'How Mumbo Jumbo conquered the world' on your reading list! I certainly agree with you about the high priest/ess/ness and believe me it caused me a lot of bother doing the psychology degree! I don't give much credit to the psychometric tools that just ask for your self report and unfortunately an awful lot of them do. I look to the brain data for support and once you delve into this you gain an understanding of the unconscious feedback loops going on between the emotional centre of the brain Amygdala and the frontal lobes where our decision making is centred (The Emotional Brain - LeDoux). It certainly takes more than silly yes/no questions to get to the root of this which is why I like the ability measure approach (you have to analyse situations etc). When I did this test, I hadn't a clue how to cheat it and I still don't know what could have been the right answers to the questions!!
So don't worry, I don't take any notice of chauvinist overtones to the subject, like a good engineer I focus on good data!

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

PaulaK:  I discovered that a key to happiness for me personally was to avoid working for companies with HR departments.  An HR department should be read as a sign that says, "We're far too large to treat our employees as human beings!".  Similarly, I avoid publicly-traded companies- again, as a signpost that says, "Our shareholders are idiots"!

All sorts of folks, but academics in various fields being chief amongst these, are interested in molding young engineers along certain ideological lines.  Some want more education in the humanities and social sciences for engineers, in an effort to "broaden their thinking".  Others want engineers to be taught environmentalism and sustainability principles, so we will bring these things into the work we do.  Others want more managerial, business and "soft skills" training of engineers so they will be more competent at the tasks they may "rise" into later in their careers.  

Sure, we engineers have an educational role, we have societal/environmental responsibiliites as citizens, and we can be asked to make business/financial decisions, manage projects and other people etc.  But why are engineers singled out amongst the professions for this special "educational" treatment?  Where is the movement to make accountants more environmentally responsible?  Why is there no hue and cry to teach scientists more about art and literature?  

This tendency amongst academics toward piling on more "education" for young engineers pre-supposes that it's the nature of engineers themselves which has to change if we're to improve the environment, the business world etc.  And this mindset is completely wrong-headed- it attempts to treat a symptom of a larger societal/economic/technical/values problem as if it were the disease itself!    

All this crap does is heap yet more stress on young engineers for the same pay.  Stress, by one definition, is the result of having responsibility for a situation that you either have no authority to change or no ability to deal with.  You've studies psychology, so you know all about "locus of control".  Giving someone the illusion of control over their situation CAN have therapeutic benefit- but giving them the illusion of responsibility for something over which they have no ACTUAL control does precisely the opposite!

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

"I discovered that a key to happiness for me personally was to avoid working for companies with HR departments.  An HR department should be read as a sign that says, "We're far too large to treat our employees as human beings!".  Similarly, I avoid publicly-traded companies- again, as a signpost that says, "Our shareholders are idiots"!"

smile for once I totally agree with you, molten!

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Alright, I took the brain ID test. . .it just confirms what every other one of these tests I've taken says: I am equally fabulous at everything. I scored "0", or exactly in the middle of the male/female brain continuum. I suppose this is why I'm constantly at odds over my career choices. I think life is easier if you clearly fit into one box or the other.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

No

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Labels like "male-brained" are counterproductive, sending the message that there is something genetically wrong with women with an engineering mindset.

Hg

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RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

hey mechmama, I scored a 0 as well, right in the middle of the male-female continuum.  I suspect that if I took it over, I might score a bit better in the spacial test because my boss walked in and I missed the last three matches (time ran out).

What surprised me is how well I scored on the eyes/emotion.  I never really felt sure of my answer, but got 8 out of 10.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

A star for you moltenmetal!

I believe you’ve identified a very useful filtering criteria.

I’ll assign a weight and add it to my potential employer comparative analysis tool kit.

Based on favorable past experiences in a satellite engineering division remote from the main hive; I had something similar pegged as the desirability of the small, well run, autonomous work group.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
Here's another one Moltenmetal.

You've asked ''But why are engineers singled out amongst the professions for this special "educational" treatment?''

Apparently 'they' think we need it more than the others!
And no I don't think we'll see the day when arts majors have compulsory advanced calculus modules. 'They' are putting the onus on us, a minority, to bridge the gap to the majority, because WHO are we supposed to be engineering for?
When the kids ask us about what engineers do, we usually confuse the hell out of them (see the thread on definition of an engineer-aargh!) but the clearest way we try to tell them is to point out all about the fabulous things we have engineered for society (even when in reality we may spend our whole lives engineering behind the scenes).

As I've already stated, at the most basic level, I think our primary motivation is to engineer for ourselves and I don't think an arts style module or two in social/communication studies will change that dramatically.
Its just politically correct at the moment to try.

My approach is politically incorrect in that I'm looking at the engineering animal in both its male and female forms and trying to be realistic rather than humanistically optimistic.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

A couple of notes -

Yes, I'm an engineer - 12/12; course I deal with plans on a daily basis as well as structural modeling.

On the matter of arcane HR groups, I'm thankful that our company has made an online resouce of our HR group.  After some initial bugs our group has found it to work quite well.  So in essence it was made extinct.  And nothing tickles the soul of a production person than to say good riddens to non-productive (read overhead) people!

Regards,
Qshake
pipe
Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?


Brain ID test:
I tried this one - http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/results.shtml

...and scored 0.
Now I'm worried. The test said the average male got 50 (toward the male end of the scale) and the average female got 50 toward the female end of the scale.

Should I move to San Francisco?

Bill

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

I got 12/12 on the cute little shapes and I scored 50 toward the "male" side...

Hg

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RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Try part 6 - the rotating shapes puzzle. I actually found one of them frustrating, but got 11/12

Bill, you get an overall score of zero if you haven't completed all 6 puzzles.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

I got a zero too. I'm not concerned at all.

I don't believe anyone has any ability to read people's emotions like a book. I answered many of the questions in a random (50/50) way. I usually couldn't tell any difference between face pairs.

I tried to use vision persistence to locate moved objects (it doesn't work that well).

I firmly believe you cannot tell anything about most people’s emotions by looking at their face. Even when it comes to tears. Are they sadness, drama, frustration, sleep depravation?

I believe far too many people probably learned to emote and communicate with facial expressions by watching TV sitcoms anyway

That's the only explanation I have for people like Ben Affleck getting away calling themselves actors. The audience learned most of what they know about emotions and life from watching TV. They have scripted responses! The audience knows the actors are in love because of the music score and clumsy over exaggerated facial expressions.

I am someone that hasn’t owned a TV since 1983 anyway.

When you look at someone’s face, you can tell something about their overall health, hygiene, and fitness, but otherwise have no earthly idea what's going on in their head.

I like to jog. When I’ve been out for a good run, I often experience an excellent sense of refreshed, well being. My face apparently doesn’t project that at all. I recall professors in class expressing great concern that I was distressed about something when I simply felt great. The confusion was all theirs.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Kontiki99 -

I like that you haven't owned a tv since '83.  I use mine sparingly.

I do disagree that you can't decipher emotions from facial expressions.  Unless the person your are looking at is deliberately trying to deceive you I'm convinced facial expressions can be used to characterize emotions.

I say that as a person with a hearing deficit and that has relied heavily on lip-reading to fill in the missing parts of conversation.  So as I interact with people, technical and laypeople, I see emotions quite a bit.

You can see someone's eyes light up when their talking about a subject near and dear to them such as a new child or grandchild and when they talk about something that is boring or upsetting it is equally expressed.

Regards,
Qshake
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Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Qshake,

I believe one can only accurately decipher emotions when cultural, psychological, environmental, emotional and maybe cognitive frames of reference are similar. (I don’t know if that constitutes a complete list, I just worked it up.)

The problem is knowing when the frame of reference is different for someone else. People often seem to assume similar frames of reference, when in fact a similarity does not exist.

I was going to cite 9-11 suicide pilots as an example that mooted security efforts despite some governmental suspicions, but that involves malicious deception, so I’ll try to describe other examples:

Someone tells another a joke and both laugh. The person listening to the joke chuckles to keep the jokester from feeling awkward out of respect, perhaps all the while wondering why anyone would find that old gag funny.

A senior member of a company explains regulatory matters to a very experienced new hire. The new person listens intently for anything that might be helpful, at the same time amazed that the company and that person got as far as they did with such a sophomoric level of understanding.

There are perhaps innocent and maybe necessary deceptions going on. The bottom line is that both parties have a very different take on the emotional dynamic of the encounter.

Had the assumptions matched, very likely the emotional interpretations have been the same.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
Sorry Kontiki99 but I'm with Qshake on this one, well actually I'm with Paul Ekman who has done loads of work on the pattern recognition of human emotions. Personally I think its the easiest aspect of emotional intelligence to get better at because of this. But you are right to point out the gap between what's going on inside the head to whats relayed on the face - there are a lot of potential gaps, person-to-person and way too many variables!!! Not least the poker face among us!

The difficult part as I see it, is once you do determine  (or are told!) the particular dominant emotion in a situation - WHAT what do you do with that information?? Ignore it and hope for the best? Block it out and concentrate on the facts? Let logic see you through??
There were a whole lot of emotional situations I had to analyse in that MECEIT test and select what I thought was optimum plan of action. I was BRUTAL at it! It told me I was stressing the logical over the emotional.
But all the books say that you need good EI for good management. So was I as good a manager as I thought I was.......hmmmmm. Not so sure now, am I!

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

My guess is that any set of techniques are at best statistically relevant when certain assumptions are true.

With management, some people are good or bad at it inspite of any training effort they make.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Quote:

I firmly believe you cannot tell anything about most people’s emotions by looking at their face.

What an odd thing to say.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Even I scored 50% on that test, which since it was 1 in 4 by random guessing indicates that either I should have bought a Lottery ticket at the same time, or that I could somehow associate emotional state with photos of eyes.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

I was very surprised at how easy the eyes test was. I scored 10/10 for that one.

You guys should try the smile test on that website. You have to choose whether the smiles are fake or not. Very interesting stuff...

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
I'm giving you a star Kontiki99 just for making me feel better but all that research into what makes a good manager has to have something going for it - doesn't it??
Anyway, it has set me to thinking again along the 'Gattaca' lines (the movie that is) i.e. if I was being considered for a management post now, would such a low score (average EI overall) preclude me from selection??
By the way, while Antonio Damasio has done some great work on the difference in cultural expression of emotion, Paul Ekman showed that the basic ones happy/sad/fear etc have a universal commonality.

Sounds like y'all are havin a bit of fun with the brain test and don't underestimate the unconscious reactions to the photos Greg, bodies do lots of communicating on that level without us ever consciously getting wind of it!
 

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

"In recent years the concept of Emotional Intelligence has been sweeping through the HR scene ..."
New trends show  periodically in both HR and OBOT.  There is Theory Z, Comparable Worth etc.
New theories help business professor sell books and for few year and collect hefty consulting fees.
Where is Tom Peters now?  Can you find his books in Boarders?
Emotionial Intelligence is like Comparable Worth, "interesting but useless".  They cannot be applied.
It sounds like they are trying to measure wisdom and maturity. IF you could measure it what would you do with it?  It would be like teaching common sense. First define it, then teach it. Simple, right!

You can understand the reason men and women think differently from a good anthropology class.  Men hunted and women gathered. Different skills that resulted in different thinking and communication patterns.

IF you think about it the basket may be a more important invention than the wheel.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

If I may expand on my 24 May 07 11:44 post...

It's interesting what they pick and choose in the quiz, and what people in general will choose, as diagnostics for "maleness" or "femaleness" rather than simply where along a spectrum one seems to fall.

Men tend to be taller than women.  I didn't see a "how tall are you" question on the quiz, even though they made a big deal about another physical dimension.  Should we consider tall women to be more man-like and short men to be more woman-like?  I don't see a lot of that attitude about (these days anyway).

Back to questions used on the quiz...if you're better at certain kinds of analytical tasks (matching line angles, rotating shapes in 3D) you're to be considered "male-brained" because the general pattern is that men tend to fall higher on that particular scale.  The quiz takes that attitude and so do a lot of other people who get into discussions of this kind.

But then there's the vocabulary question.  Apparently women tend to have larger vocabularies, according to that quiz.  So well-read intelligent men with large vocabularies are...female-brained?  I don't see anyone saying that, outside this quiz.

Looks like women who are good at what men are good at must be considered man-like, but men who are good at what women are good at are simply better at that task than the average man, and good for them.

Hg

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RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Another touchy feely concept marketed by HR to justify their own existence.

"In recent years the concept of Emotional Intelligence has been sweeping through the HR scene ..."

Some sort of intelligence needs to get into HR, if this is to be their only qualification.

Surprisingly I didnt score too good

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
One thing that is coming through loud and clear here is the disdain for HR and their associated 'bag of tricks', of which the latest one appears to be EI!
I'm not going to launch into a defence of HR but, in line with the other thread on 'what engineering would you recommend to your kid', I have long been an advocate of finding out as much about yourself as possible so as to make informed decisions about which course of action/career might suit you best. Have any of you ever learnt anything about yourselves from IQ tests? personality tests? EI tests?

I got tired of looking at machinery and began looking at the human machine instead and, from my engineering perspective, it makes sense to me that there should be patterns.
HgTX, you brought up tallness- While I think that it can influence a person's self-esteem (male or female) it is interesting to note that among boys (not girls) height can be rough indicator of status within a peer group. Take a look at the Fortune 500 company heads, they are above average height!
The testosterone issue relates to the impact of this hormone on brain wiring and hence behaviour and the patterns here show that the more testosterone a girl receives prenatally, the more her behaviour will conform to typical male behaviour than female. Personally, I don't fret too much about this because it has helped me to understand a lot about where I fit on the continium.
And for the guys, their continium leads from female braining (male nurse) to mid braining preformance all the way to the extreme male brain of Autism.
EI, when properly tested, fits with this contimium and I think we can learn a thing or two about our decision making from it, both technical and non-technical.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Hi PaulaK,

These tests are quite interesting and I'm sure they teach people things about themselves, but I do agree with HgTX in the sense that I wonder what is the added value of linking one extreme of the scale with the concept of "male" (not even very precisely defined) and the other one with female.

First of all males and females all score differently, so we end up with the funny situation of some males being more male than other ones who might be more feminine than many females... as if male and female were not already very precisely defined on a chromosome level.

Secondly it makes the whole discussion politicial all of a sudden, because one end of the scale is obviously more desirable than the other one: we would all prefer to be more emotionally intelligent rather than less, but does that mean we should all try to become women? Just imagine if the extremes had been flagged black and white and the test had been about dancing skills or you name it, the thread would have been red flagged immediately and the site would have been banned for racist content.

Let's not do the same thing with men and women. Let's consider EI as a scale on itself and keep the fact of being male or female as a completely separate issue.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

(OP)
Ah Epoisses, thank you for your thought provoking post.
It brings up those thorny issues of political correctness and its relationship to scientific correctness....Hmmmmmm.
The scientific examination of human male/female behaviours have had a long history of political mangling and misinterpretation and in this media-soaked/soundbite world, I think there is little scientists (and this engineer) can do to stem this phenomena, other than to reiterate over and over again what the terms 'on average' mean.

In terms of EI, the only reason one extreme is linked to male and the other to female is on the basis that on average, these are the people who exhibit these type of behaviours. Lets add the clarification that it is the continuum of male/female brainess that EI is related to rather than any all encompassing idea about what single marker makes a man or a woman (chromosomes are not as specific as you might think!)

You raise the interesting idea that one end of the scale is more desirable than the other. Would we all like to be more emotionally intelligent???? This is actually what I was trying to get at in my title for this thread. Do engineers WANT to be more emotionally intelligent???
Should we be aiming, as you hint, towards that politically correct centre where every male is more empathetic and every female more systematic???
What would become of the 'very well behaved child, shy lonely and withdrawn, considered mentally slow, unsociable and adrift in his dreams'?  Ans: A lost Einstein.
And think of the words of Hans Asperger, ' A good professional attitude involves single-mindedness as well as a decision to give up a large number of other interests...It seems that for success in science or art, a dash of autism is essential'

So, personally, even though the MSCEIT showed my EI shortcomings, I'm perfectly happy with my lot. I don't want to have a higher EQ, IQ or any other Q's, I just want to understand the Q's I've got and make the most of them.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

To quote a friend of mine,

"If I had wanted to deal with people all the time, I would not have become an engineer."

This was in response to an HR question regarding interpersonal skills.

Regards,

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Discussing a job application that you filled in with an HR person over the phone.......

"....artistic! Oh, it says artistic does it? I'm sorry about that, I didn't have my glasses on, so I explained about my being autistic. I wondered why you had such an enlightened recruitment policy".

Bill

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

"Lets add the clarification that it is the continuum of male/female brainess that EI is related to rather than any all encompassing idea about what single marker makes a man or a woman (chromosomes are not as specific as you might think!)"  I am not sure what that means, but it may be a good example.
My earlier reference to anthropology was to the many studies of Hunter-gatherer societies.  There are few left so all the studies we have now are likely to be all we ever have.
In those societies men hunted and women gathereed.  To hunt successfully you need and use a spatial thought process.  You see a picture in your mind of the wooly mamoth over the next ridge, you see a picture of the canyon it's in and what the terrain is like. The same processes are used today in hunting, war and many games.
Women gathered food.  If I remember correctly they brought in more food than men. The basket allowed them to bring in more food than the hunters did. They could bring the food to a central place where people could eat it in safety and leisure. What do you do in that situation - develope language.  
If men and women both hunted we could still get along with grunts and hand signals, we wouldn't need to talk.  
There are variations on this and the exact way it happen is subject to interpritation.  I prefer to read on anthropology and related subjects than some contrived theory like EI.
You can apply it a lot of what men and women do today. Women gather (shop) men play games.  
Women talk more- look at the entries in this thread. the women have written longer post, the men tend to write shorter more terse entries.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

"Women talk more- look at the entries in this thread. the women have written longer post, the men tend to write shorter more terse entries."

Get us some stats from other threads.  Maybe women are more invested in gender-related topics.

Hg

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RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

HgTx
Could be.  I don't do stats, just citing casual, unscientific evidence. Same evidence that has been cited in literature for at least 2,000 years. The scientific group that has done the best job so far to document the difference in "brains" of men and women are anthropoligist and behavorial scientist.
If in fact people are going to measure and use EI an understanding of the reasons for the differences in men and women and how they got that way is useful. I was just trying to put a slant on the subject, no ulterior motives. I am not a MCP.  

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Hi PaulaK,
Thank you for all your enthusiastic contributions!

In response to your comments: I'll steal HgTX' example to try and explain why I don't agree with calling one extreme male and the other one female. Knowing that the average male is taller than the average female, imagine we developed a length scale from 0 to 20 ft, could we say 0 ft is female and 20 ft is male? And could we call anyone in between more male or more female depending on where he/she is on the scale from 0 to 20 independent of his/her gender? That sounds as silly to me as doing the same thing with EQ.

Re would we all want to be more EI - on second thoughts I agree that is less of a no brainer than I thought initially. Would we all want to be stronger, run faster, be more agile? Would we all want to be more intelligent? Well I guess yes - then why not more emotionally intelligent? But you suggest being more EI would be at the expense of something else. I admit I have no actual knowledge here, heck I hardly know how to define EI, so you may very well be right. If you add EI to Einstein, how would he change...? would he "improve"? (define?)

In any case I am not suggesting we should all converge to the politically correct middle, as you thought you read between the lines. (Although there are some males (not females) which I would love to make a bit more
I do believe deeply that the great variety of personalities make humanity interesting and provides tremendous opportunities for it to develop. As you sugggested it might actually be a good thing to have a couple of autists around.


RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

"more systematic" I wanted to write (boss stepped in)

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Intelligent engineer(or any professional) would not depend on HR to give them raises or make/break their life or careers. He/she would be on his own or dictating his own terms.

So what is the definition of Emotional Intelligence? Is that another way of describig interpersonnel skills?

So is there must be non-emotional intelligence?

No intelligence but all emotions? No emotion but just intelligence?

As far as I know intelligence has little to do with knowledge.



 

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

The problem with Emotional Intelligence ->

Video (watch with sound)

Apologies for the misfire.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

The problem with "Emotional Intelligence" is the name.  Why not call it "Emotional Bias" instead?  That way cavemen like me don't feel emotionally thick.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Validation through semantics

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

"As far as I know intelligence has little to do with knowledge."
Or wisdom.

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

There is no such thing as "Emotional Intelligence."

HR needed something to do, and some PhD needed to sell his test.

Charlie
www.facsco.com

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?


I'm going to go recue that poor little red lamp and put it next to my red Swingline stapler.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?



In a turnaround where you have lots of people working together inside special confined dirty spaces like reactors or columns and where you have several work disciplines teams such as cleaning, mechanical, welding etc. it is important to deal with their emotions in the sense to smooth the work, so that the people involved in the work feel motivated and proud of their role for the success of the job. When you entered inside a column with all that noise of pneumatic tools and hammer strikes mixed with “slag songs” and whistles of “strange singers and musicians” it is a signal that the work is going pretty well. On the contrary if everybody is quarrelling and arguing with bed humour is because there is something wrong with the supervising of those teams. Most of the time is better to have a very good emotional intelligent supervisor than a cognitive one. Everybody has a value.

Regards

Luismarques   

“The EQ concept argues that IQ, or conventional intelligence, is too narrow; that there are wider areas of emotional intelligence that dictate and enable how successful we are. Success requires more than IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which has tended to be the traditional measure of intelligence, ignoring essential behavioural and character elements. We've all met people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially and inter-personally inept. And we know that despite possessing a high IQ rating, success does not automatically follow.”


RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?


"We've all met people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially and inter-personally inept."

Yes, I think I’m dating one............

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Hi Folks,

I've enjoyed this thread in its entirety, but I'm a little aghast at all the hostility toward HR reps. Yes, I know there are some out there that have agendas, and some that are, well, clueless. Like in any profession. But, because they have a relatively new tool to measure how an employee performs or doesn't perform doesn't mean they're dangerous or...out to get *you.* It's just another way for them to look at how to do their job better. And, no. I'm not an HR Rep.  

And, the handle "Emotional Intelligence" - why all the hostility toward the description? What is intelligence? A manifestation of a high mental capacity, and the faculty of understanding, right? So, being able to understand and comprehend one's own emotions or relate to someone else's accurately - that could be construed as being...emotionally intelligent, no?

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

The Catbert stereotype comes from somewhere.

HR where I work is *not* here to be my advocate.  Read into that what you like about what they *are* here for.

Hg

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RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

Seems their main role is to try and save management from law suits.

Senior management comes up with diabolical schemes and HR implement them in such a way as to keep them just this side of the law, most of the time.

At my site in a HR department of 3, 4 people have left in the last year or so.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

RE: Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers?

The last time we had a serious round of redundancies, one of those who took a voluntary was our HR manager.  It says it all to me.

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