Another windowless hotel ballroom, another keynote speech. This speaker, however, is different. He’spsychologist and best-selling author Daniel Goleman. And he has theaudience — several hundred members of the International Personnel ManagementAssociation — in the palm of his hand.
His topic is emotional intelligence. It’s a phrase that appears in thetitles of both of his best-selling books and a subject on which he has madehimself something of a guru. The lecture is a well-crafted package, one ofhundreds of talks he has given here and abroad. It not only summarizesrecent research on psychology and the brain without putting the listenersto sleep, but also demonstrates how this arcana is invaluable to corporatemanagers. Salted with humorous anecdotes from the world of work — many drawnfrom his latest book, “Working with Emotional Intelligence” (Bantam Books,1998) — and delivered with I’ve-been-there-too affability, the speech isentertaining as well as convincing. Goleman’s enormously popular argumentis all here in a nutshell.
