情商3：影响你一生的工作情商（第2版）

上述列举的能力可以使人们在不同工作领域有卓越的表现。举个例子，在蓝十字健康保险部，成功的客户代表都会表现出高度的自制和责任心，并且拥有很强的同理心。一个成功的零售店店长之所以成功，也是由于具备了同样的三种能力——自制、责任心和同理心，再加上第四种能力，就是“服务取向”。^[23]

一个人成功所需要的能力也许会随着他职位的改变而改变。在多数大型机构里，高级行政人员比中层管理者更需要政治敏感。^[24]有些特定职位则要求任职者具备特定能力。^[25]要成为优秀的护士，需要幽默感；优秀的银行工作人员则需要尊重客户隐私；出色的校长需要找方法从教师和家长那里获得反馈；在税务局，最佳收税者不仅精通业务，也要擅长处理人际关系；执法人员如果尽可能少地使用必需的强制手段，那么就证明他有难能可贵的品质。

此外，关键能力也与特定机构的现实需要相关。每家公司和工厂都有自己的情感环境，每个工人要适应的主要环境特征相应有所不同。

有一项针对大约300家公司进行的研究，研究涉及很多不同领域的工作。结果发现，要想在工作中表现出色，除了这些特质以外，员工还必须具备更强的情感能力。情感能力的作用远大于认知能力。^[26]对销售人员而言，优秀员工最重要的能力来自于情商。这很容易理解，可是在科学家和技术类工作者中，“感召力”和“成就驱动力”也排在前列，“分析能力”位居第三。科学研究者仅凭才华不足以成为伟大的科学家，除非他同时有影响他人、说服他人的能力，同时具备自律精神，乐于追求富有挑战性的目标。一个懒惰或沉默寡言的天才也许头脑中塞满了答案，但是如果别人不知道，或者对此答案漠不关心，一切都是徒劳无功。

我们来谈谈技术精英吧，他们常被人称为“企业咨询工程师”。这些“故障检修人员”受雇于高科技公司，要随时待命。一旦某项目出现问题，他们就即刻提供救援支持。他们备受重视，甚至他们的名字在年度报告中与企业管理层一并列出。这些技术精英凭什么享受如此特殊的待遇呢？在波士顿银行任职并曾在美国数字设备公司任职的苏姗·恩尼斯（Susan Ennis）这样说：“使他们与众不同的不是他们的智商，因为公司大多数人和他们一样聪明。关键因素是他们的情感能力，他们乐于聆听，具有感召力，与人合作融洽，对他人予以激励，与人愉快共事，这些特质都十分重要。”

诚然，很多人虽然在情商方面存在不足，仍能晋升至高位。这是长期以来企业文化的现状。但是，如今工作变得更复杂，更需要集体合作完成，因此需要员工在公司内积极合作才能形成竞争优势。

在新时代的工作中，更重视灵活性、团队合作和强有力的客户导向。因此，本书论述的一系列关键情感能力就显得日趋重要了。无论从事哪种工作，无论在世界何处，要想崭露头角，必须具备这些能力。^[27]

1. The study of foreign-service officers and the beginnings of the competence-testing movement aredescribed by David C. McClelland in his introduction to Lyle M. Spencer Jr.and Signe M. Spencer,Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1993).
2. See David C. McClelland, “Testing for Competence Ratherthan Intelligence,” AmericanPsychologist 46 (1973).McClelland’s landmark paper has continued to stir debateeven after a quartercentury.
3. The two computer programmers: Spencer and Spencer Competence at Work.
4. Academic tests failed to predict best diplomats: KennethClark found that scores by applicants onthe selection testfor foreign-service officers did not predict success as ratedby their later on-the-jobperformance evaluations. Resultsof this study are reported by D. C. McClelland and C.Dailey,“Improving Officer Selection for the ForeignService,” McBer, Boston, 1972.
5. The test is the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity, or PONSdeveloped at Harvard by Robert Rosenthal.See, e.g.,Robert Rosenthal, “The PONS Test: Measuring Sensitivityto Nonverbal Cues,” in P.McReynolds (ed.), Advances in Psychological Assessment (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1977).
6. The higher estimate of IQ and job performance: e.g., John B. Hunter and F. L. Schmidt, “Validityand Utility ofAlternative Predictors of Job Performance,” Psychological Bulletin 96 (1984); F. L.Schmidt and John B. Hunter, “Employment Testing: Old Theories and New ResearchFindings,”American Psychologist 36 (1981).
7. A more careful view of IQ and job performance: Robert Sternberg, Successful Intelligence (NewYork: Simon &Schuster, 1996).
8. Harvard graduates entrance exam scores and later-lifesuccess: Dean K. Whitla, “Value Added:Measuring theImpact of Undergraduate Education,” Office ofInstructional Research and Evaluation,HarvardUniversity, 1975; cited in David C. McClelland, “TheKnowledge-Testing-EducationalComplex Strikes Back,”American Psychologist 49 (1994).
9. Originally called McBer, the firm was also founded with David Berlew, another of McClelland’sformer students.
10. IQ in professional and highly complex technical fields:Spencer and Spencer, Competence atWork. As they put it,cognitive abilities alone are not the mark of topperformers, since “in higher leveltechnical, marketing,professional, and managerial jobs, almost everyone has anIQ of 120 or above andan advanced degree from a good university. What distinguishes superior performers inthese jobs ismotivation, interpersonal skills, and politicalskills.”
11. See Robert J. Sternberg and Richard K. Wagner, PracticalIntelligence: Nature and Origins ofCompetence in theEveryday World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
12. See Sternberg, Successful Intelligence.
13. Practical intelligence and managerial success: R. K.Wagner and R. J. Sternberg, “PracticalIntelligence in Real-World Pursuits: The Role of Tacit Knowledge,”Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 49 (1985).
14. Technical skills as threshold abilities: Spencer andSpencer, Competence at Work.
15. The tale of Penn and Matt is told by Robert Sternberg inSuccessful Intelligence.
16. The tale of the president was told by Ann GrahamEhringer, director of the Family BusinessProgram at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.
17. The measure of capacity to handle cognitive complexitywas developed by Elliott Jacques; seeElliott Jacques, Requisite Organization (Arlington, VA: Cason Hall, 1989).
18. The term “emotional competence” has been used in thissense by several other theorists andresearchers; see, e.g.,Carol Saarni, “Emotional Competence: How emotions andrelationships becomeintegrated,” in R. A. Thompson(ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, vol. 36, 1988;Carol Saarni,“Emotional Competence and Self-regulationin Childhood,” in Peter Salovey and David J. Sluyter(eds.),Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence(New York: Basic Books, 1997). By highlightingemotionalcompetencies, I do not mean to imply that expertise andcognitive abilities are irrelevant;these abilities are part ofa complex system, and in any such interacting system allparts make theircontribution. My aim is to give emotionalcompetencies—so easily discounted or overlooked—theirdue.
19. There is a nascent effort to translate emotional skills into software that will “humanize”computers. See Roz Picard, Affective Computing (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998).
20. Damage to the brain’s cortex impairs our abilities to thinkand perceive; damage to key subcorticalareas destroysour ability to register emotions. Damage to circuits centering on the amygdala have themost devastatingimpact on the ability to register emotion. (See JosephLeDoux, The Emotional Brain[New York: Simon &Schuster, 1996].) Cutting central links between the brain’stopmost layers andthese same emotional centerssabotages the emotional competencies, all of which depend on the tightorchestration of thought and feeling.The specific circuitry between neocortex and subcortexthat iscrucial for integrating thought and emotion runsfrom the amygdala in the limbic system, thebrain’ssubcortical center for emotion, and the ventromedial areaof the prefrontal lobes, the brain’sneocortical executivecenter. This circuitry is described in detail in Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error:Emotion, Reason, and the HumanBrain (New York: Grosset/Putnam, 1994). Damasio, aneurologist atthe University of Iowa Medical School, hasdone the best research on the brain basis ofcompetence.When I sent him the list of emotional competencies, hisconclusion was that all of them(though not cognitive abilities) would be impaired in people who had brain damage that cut theconnections between the crucial prefrontal and emotional centers. In the logic ofneurology, thecapacities impaired in people with damage to a particular brain site suggest that this same area ofthebrain regulates those capacities in people whose brains areintact. In other words, the underlyingneural circuitry foremotional competence—as opposed to intellectual competence—connects theprefrontal area with the emotional centers. The main clue is that damage to these areas impairs thepersonal and social abilities that allow effective job performance, even though cognitive abilities areintact.
21. The term “emotional competence” includes both socialand emotional competencies, just asHoward Gardner uses the term “personal intelligence” to subsume both intra-and interpersonal abilities.
22. This generic competence framework distills findings from:MOSAIC competencies forprofessionals and administrators (developed by the U.S. Department ofPersonnel, 1996); Spencer andSpencer, Competence at Work; Richard Boyatzis, The Competent Manager: A Modelfor EffectivePerformance (New York: John Wiley and Sons,1982); and competence studies published in RichardH.Rosier (ed.), The Competency Model Handbook, Vols. 1–3(Lexington: Linkage, 1994–1996).
23. The specific competencies for Blue Cross reps, shoe storemanagers, brokers, and life insurancesales: Walter V.Clarke Associates, “Activity Vector Analysis: Some Applications to the Concepts ofEmotional Intelligence,”June 1996.
24. Political awareness: Ann Howard and Douglas W. Bray Managerial Lives in Transition (NewYork: Guilford Press,1988).
25. Job-specific competencies: these can account for as muchas 20 percent of those needed forsuperior performance.See Spencer and Spencer, Competence at Work.
26. Spencer and Spencer, Competence at Work.
27. These emotional competencies are to a large extentapplicable to top performance in virtually everyjob. Oneestimate is that generic competencies cover 80 to 98 percent of behaviors typical of starperformers, dependingon the specific job. That estimate includes three that are purely cognitive—analytical thinking, conceptualthinking, and job-specific expertise—and so do not fall among theemotional intelligence group. See Spencer and Spencer, Competence at Work, for a more detaileddiscussion.