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Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Emotional Intelligence vs Assertivity

The concept and importance of Emotional Intelligence has swept the business world with nearly all of the Fortune 500 companies actively engaged in teaching it. The corporate world does not spend their money wantonly. They expect results. 

So why do so few doctors know about it? Why is there not training?

Emotional Intelligence is just another name for the empathy that is so often proclaimed as a personal ability and as a goal for the entire medical profession.

A part of the reluctance must be in that name. It is a bad name for anybody claiming scientific qualifications. Emotions are what must be excluded from thought for the Noble Scientific  Ethic of Objectivity. The uninformed 'street' version of what Emotional Intelligence means hardly helps. 

They believe that the name Emotional Intelligence means that emotions are intelligent and should be used and trusted for decision making purposes. Emotions are at least as good as intellect and rational thought.

Those that have probably never read one of the core books for the corporate version like the sound of it. They like statements about EQ being at least as important in life as IQ. They think that claiming to have a high EQ makes them clever, as good as or better as an IQ genius.

This total lack of understanding and judging words on whether they sound good or bad, to the user and others, and their effectiveness in making a subjective Lalaland seem like reality is typical of the passive aggressive mindset and communication. See  http://clinicalarts.blogspot.mx/2013/12/selling-best-therapy-assertiveness.html

And of course, there are those so-called experts and self appointed authors with the critical reading skills and objectivity of an anti-vaccinationist who promote Emotional Intelligence in this way to the easily misled passive aggressives for fame and fortune.

It means absolutely nothing of the sort!

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups - Wikipedia

Real Emotional Intelligence, according to its definition, actually describes those of passive aggressives as out of control Emotional Halfwits. In fact, they are the emotionally controlled, not the emotional controllers. Emotional Intelligence starts with being able to identify, assess and control your own emotions with the rational, conscious mind rather than letting them control you! They fail at the first step. They are avoiding taking that first step through confused egoism.

The first step is the identification, assessment and control of your own emotions. Without it other people's emotions will control you. The Emotionally Unintelligent will randomly drag you around with their out of control emotions. The Emotionally Intelligent will consciously control your emotions and indirectly your actions actions and thoughts for whatever motive they have.

Without learning self-discipline and self-control over your own emotions, you become an incompetent emotional manipulator. You may be able to control other people's emotions to great effect but this is achieved by the infectivity of emotions in a society that believes in sympathy; that a problem shared is a problem halved. They can only be led randomly to where your uncontrolled emotions take you. There is no motive, no plan, no fixed objective achieved unless it belongs to another, a controller.

The person with Emotional Intelligence is an actor. They play the part. They have conscious control of their superficial emotions and deliberately affect others with those emotions through sympathy and non-verbal communication. Their conscious mind is in total control. They are faking emotions for effect.

Leading people to believe that they are already Emotionally Intelligent keeps the buying herd exactly where the corporations, advertising and media want them: weakminded, controllable and believing that they are wonderful as they are with no motivation for self betterment or personal development.

As such, Emotional Intelligence has largely replaced the Assertivity model in the corporate world. The triangle between assertivity, passive and aggressive is in too plain English. It is too accessible. It speaks the truth about passive aggressives and they get offended. Better that they believe themselves to be Emotionally Intelligent because critically illiterate pop psy, non-academic 'feminists' and New Age authors tell them whilst behind their backs they are being laughed at. 

The most hilarious part of all is that the conspiracy theorists, who are allegedly against these big corporations and their 'mind control', are doing a marvellous job of promoting mind control. And they are promoting the Emotional Dimwittedness as free thinking when it is under the control of the executives, sales and marketing departments.

This has only happened because they have not properly read the definition. They just think the words sound good. They are highly effective on other passive aggressive people who do not know or care what they mean.

Emotional Intelligence is controlling yourself, others and groups, even whole societies through their emotions.

Remember, I have occasionally worked in corporate psychology and know what is going on behind closed doors. It is why I only work very occasionally in sales psychology because I will only work for ethical businesses. I have also worked for governments as one of the few cross-disciplinary advisors on the psychological tools of cultural change in areas such as health, education and societal reform.

Of course, true Emotional Intelligence can be used for good or ill. It depends on the motivation behind them. When used for the long term common good, Emotional Intelligence is high level assertiveness, Flexible Assertivity, when used on others in the short to medium term and Effective Assertiveness when used on a greater scale. When it is used for lower motives of egoism and short term profit, it is not assertiveness but a highly advanced version of the dark arts of sales.

So Emotional Intelligence is high level assertivity at a superficial level but without the invisible, underlying morality of wanting the fairest and best outcome for both sides in the long term. Emotional Intelligence can also be used egoistically for short term profit and gain without any consideration for its victim. In the assertiveness model, this is aggressive sales.

If your job is to market and sell products that will damage life, health, society, the economy, humanity or the planet in the long run, you cannot use Win/Win Assertive sales. The dark side of Emotional Intelligence is the most effective strategy remaining.

And it even sounds good! Everyone will buy.


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