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Cary Cherniss and Daniel Goleman (Editors). The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace: How to Select for, Measure, and Improve Emotional Intelligence in Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001, 352 pages, $39.95.
Reviewed by Celeste M. Brotheridge, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Administration, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Where is the intelligence in the proliferation of books on emotional intelligence (EI)? How many books on the topic of emotional intelligence is "enough"? Certainly, there are enough trade books available on the subject (e.g., Cooper & Sawaf, 1997; Glennon, 2000; Goleman, 1995, 1998; Kravitz & Schubert, 2000; Lynn, 2001; Ryback, 1997; Schilling, 1996; Segal, 1997; Stein & Book, 2001; Steiner & Perry, 1997; Weisinger, 2000). There are also several research-based books available that address the topic of emotional intelligence, including works edited by two prominent researchers, Bar-On and Salovey (Bar-On & Parker, 2000; Salovey & Sluyter, 1997) who offer emotional intelligence models that rival the one proffered by Coleman and company.
The Cherniss and Coleman book is, in a sense, equivalent to the latter two books. It is equivalent in that one of its editors dwells in the "trinity" of prominent emotional intelligence researchers (Bar-On, Salovey, & Coleman). But, it is not entirely equivalent in that its contributors are, for the most part, members of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations that champions Coleman's model. Cherniss and/or Coleman have contributed 6 of the 12 chapters in this book. Other contributors are academics, including Boyatzis, Druskat, Kram, and Wolff, as well as individuals employed in industry or consulting firms, including Caplan, Fernandez-Araoz, Gowing, Jacobs, and Spencer. In contrast, the contributors to the Bar-On and Parker (2000) volume hail from a more diverse range of disciplines and perspectives.
This book builds on Coleman's earlier books (1995, 1998) by presenting an updated version of his EI framework and by discussing specific workplace practices that serve to build individual and group emotional competence. As in Bar-On and Parker (2000), this book includes...