Is Emotional Intelligence relevant to Engineers? 6

[PaulaK]

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.)

 

[moltenmetal]

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!

 

[epoisses]

"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"!"

for once I totally agree with you, molten!

 

[mechmama]

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.

 

[csd72]

No

 

[HgTX]

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

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[casseopeia]

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!"

 

[kontiki99]

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.

 

[PaulaK]

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.

 

[Qshake]

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

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

 

[WGJ]

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

 

[HgTX]

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

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[GregLocock]

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 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[kontiki99]

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.

 

[Qshake]

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

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

 

[kontiki99]

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.

 

[PaulaK]

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!

 

[kontiki99]

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.

 

[Tomfh]

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

What an odd thing to say.

 

[GregLocock]

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

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

 

[Tomfh]

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...