Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers: The People Skills You Need to Achieve Outstanding Results
Academic research tells us that project success correlates to emotional intelligence (not IQ) and consequently emotional intelligence is now recognised as a requisite skill for project managers. Anthony Mersino has written a book that provides advice on applying emotional intelligence specifically within the project management environment.
The book starts with an introduction to emotional intelligence and Mersino’s emotional intelligence framework. It explains how the reader can become more aware of their emotions and gives advice on how to control and manage those emotions. The author then explains how the reader can use emotional intelligence to manage both stakeholders and project teams.The book provides plenty of practical advice on how to use emotional intelligence in specific situations, using personal stories and movie scenes to help explain behaviours. There is a useful stakeholder tool that helps the reader to identify preferred communications styles, emotional connections and relationship strategies. Also useful is a table outlining the emotional advantages and disadvantages of different methods of communications and a table showing when to apply different leadership styles. Most useful to me was the section which encouraged you to be aware of, and control, your emotional reactions.
For me, this book was a bit like a trip to TK Maxx. There was a vague logic to how things were ordered, but it was more of a rummage through the chapters to find something useful…but not necessarily what you expected to find! If I wanted to return to the book to find advice for a specific situation, I don’t think this would be easy to do.
I found the book to be a mish mash of people and project related topics such as conflict management, leadership and team management. All useful, but nothing which cannot be found in project management books or that is common sense for people who are good at handling people. I found there to be a lot of repetition due to there being overlap between the emotional skills needed for, say, communicating with stakeholders and communicating with your project team.
In terms of value, perhaps this book is most valuable to those who need to improve their emotional intelligence the most. For anyone who considers themselves to be emotionally intelligent, this book may not offer you much new learning.
This review was written by Juliet Doswell. Juliet has 18 years in the project management world – managing projects, programmes and portfolios. She is passionate about PMOs and a committed member of PMO Flashmob. Connect to her via Linkedin.
The book
Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers – The People Skills You Need to Achieve Outstanding Results
by Antony Mersino, PMP, PMI-ACP,
American Management Association, 2013
ISBN 978-0-8144-3277-8
£13.99
Rating «« (2 out of 5)
