Daniel Goleman - Author of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence

In Social Intelligence I noted longterm trends that signal a gradual corrosion of opportunities for people to connect – networks of friendships shrinking, families spending less time together, a decline in social gatherings. Though many of us sense this trend toward a loss of connection, the data tracking it has been piecemeal.

Now that’s about to change. The National Conference on Citizenship, a group dedicated to promoting civic ties, is going to track how engaged with each other people are, as part of what it calls a “Civic Health Index.” The Index will track 40 key civic indicators measuring levels of political activity, civic knowledge, volunteering, trust, and charitable giving – in part, a measure of our collective social intelligence. The group sees the index as a way to track signs of weakness in the civic fabric, to more systematically measure the trends announced in Robert Putnam’s eloquently titled book, Bowling Alone. Well and good. But I’d like to see some efforts made to reverse the trend, rather than simply document it.

“How can people improve their emotional intelligence competencies?”

That’s a question I’m often asked, most recently by Bill George, former CEO of Medtronics, and now a professor at Harvard Business School. Bill co-authored True North, one of the best books I’ve seen on leadership. Bill’s question was pointed: he uses my articles and books on emotional intelligence and leadership in his class. These make the case for why leaders need these human skills. But when it comes to how people can strengthen them, Bill has been frustrated by the lack of materials that would help his students.

There are many views of how to enhance emotional intelligence abilities; the Consortium on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations lists the best practices, based on a survey of research studies. A workbook, due out in 2008 from Harvard Business School Press, puts these into practice; it’s written by my colleagues Annie McKee of the consulting firm Teleos, Richard Boyatzis who teaches in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and Frances Johnston, who works with Annie. Reuven Bar-On is lead editor on an excellent survey of approaches, Educating People to Be Emotionally Intelligent.

When I wrote about psychological insights into e-mail in the New York Times and on this blog, a tide of responses came washing through which have refined my own thinking. My appreciation goes to all those who wrote in.

First, let me confess to a fundamental flaw: while I made a sharp distinction between communication face-to-face or by phone, on the one hand, and e-mail on the other, I failed to compare e-mail and old-fashioned letters.

As one reader noted, “Writing is always better with review and revision.” That careful reconsideration was a far more common practice back in the more leisurely day when writing a letter could take several drafts before the sender was satisfied. Rare is the e-mail that gets re-written, polished and sanded – and only then, sent.

I suspect one culprit is the lure of the “Send” button; this may well prime the brain’s premotor cortex to be a bit hair-trigger, shooting the e-mail across the Internet well before second thoughts have time to alter the message. This impulsivity, when driven by the amygdala (that is, when we feel peeved and the like), has been called the “online disinhibition effect,” or, more commonly, flaming.