It's Popular but Is It Science?

Another windowless hotel ballroom, another keynote speech. This speaker, however, is different. He’s psychologist and best-selling author Daniel Goleman. And he has the audience — several hundred members of the International Personnel Management Association — in the palm of his hand.

His topic is emotional intelligence. It’s a phrase that appears in the titles of both of his best-selling books and a subject on which he has made himself something of a guru. The lecture is a well-crafted package, one of hundreds of talks he has given here and abroad. It not only summarizes recent research on psychology and the brain without putting the listeners to sleep, but also demonstrates how this arcana is invaluable to corporate managers. Salted with humorous anecdotes from the world of work — many drawn from his latest book, “Working with Emotional Intelligence” (Bantam Books, 1998) — and delivered with I’ve-been-there-too affability, the speech is entertaining as well as convincing. Goleman’s enormously popular argument is all here in a nutshell.