Distinguished competencies

I came across a recent video of a talk by Daniel Goleman , and found it fascinating. It starts off with a really interesting insight on the correlation of IQ and EQ, they are not correlated! He goes further to suggest that the majority of companies tend to screen a lot on IQ, meaning everyone that works here is within 5% on IQ scores, and the majority of the difference in performance at work is derived from EQ.

Wow…so much for being the smartest person in the room!

Take a watch, it is worth it; he talks about how you need to be smart enough to get in the door, and then after that it is all about EQ. And then describes 6 distinguishing competencies (paraphrased):

1) Drive to achieve; improve performance, better, faster, more effective and have very high internal standards of success, dependant on that rather than others standards
2) Impact and Influence; persuasive arguments, debate, marshal data well, tailor in mid-presentation
3) Pattern recognition, conceptual thinking or seeing what matters, underlying issues, what will make a difference
4) Analysis of systems, breaking problems down, anticipation of obstacles, understanding first order and second order impacts of changes, logical conclusions
5) Taking on the challenges that are not assigned; persistent in tackling problems
6) Self-confidence; trusting your own judgment, liking to operate independently

And I tend to agree; in particular I like #5, at times it can be a bit risky, but identifying and then working on a problem that no one really knew was there is always refreshing and exciting to see!

Cheers, Steve

Tony Blair autobiography: He certainly has a point of view on topics, and is not shy to share it. I did find learning about the UK political scene fascinating though, lots of really good insights to what you see on the front pages.