His book, “Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers,” shares what Mersino learned and is a wealth of information and a no-nonsense approach to:
- Creating a high energy performance work place
- Developing collaboration among teams
- Dealing productively with change
- Leveraging emotional information for better decision making
The book is sectioned into ten chapters and makes for easy skimming to find the critical areas a person may want to explore. It gives substantive explanations of why it is important to understand one’s own leanings and modes of operation before leading a group of others. The language is clear and direct without the philosophical or psychological jargon of academics. He uses terms from business to show how “social awareness” is a necessary precondition to building project stakeholder relationships. He explains relationship management systematically to be useful. Most importantly, he gives tips, techniques and methods that are adaptable to different situations. Each chapter is a treasure of useful information.
The end-of-chapter action plan exercises keep the learning momentum for the reader to apply and test the suggestions from the chapters. The end is not the end. The back of the book contains a list of resources including a list of movies and books worth exploring further. This is a good addition to keep the reader exploring and learning.
I recommend this book as an organizational tool to enhance internal communications and relationship building while reaching out to the larger external stakeholder base. The book makes sense where sense is not yet common. We have come a long way since the 1990 when “emotional intelligence” was first used as a concept. Mersino has taken it into the active world of application to address misconceptions about emotions, bringing the concept into a viable and useful area to constructively and effectively manage change, criticism and stress when people work together.
Lucia Worthington lives in Washougal and teaches business management at Clark College and entrepreneurship practices at Portland State University. To recommend a book for review, email bookreviews@vbjusa.com.
{jathumbnail off}