RWL Newsletter #52
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! I hope you've had a great week! I was out paddling in my kayak on the Oyster River yesterday here in Durham when I snapped this picture. The Oyster River runs through UNH campus, and then down to Great Bay, which is an inland salt water bay connected to the ocean by the much larger Piscataqua River. Great Bay is tidal, and as a result, so is the Oyster River, at least the part where I paddle and where I took this picture. Yesterday when I went out, it was a couple of hours after low tide, so the tide was coming in pretty strongly. As a result, even though I was paddling down river when I started out, I was actually paddling against the current, not with it. You can sort of see what the water is doing if you look closely, but if you just look at the water and say to yourself, "That's a river - the water flows down river", you would miss what was happening beneath the surface. In fact, with this river, the water flow is always changing, which is part of why I enjoy paddling there so much. Sometimes I can't see the bottom, sometimes my kayak is just scraping by in six inches of water. You have to paddle differently depending on what the water is doing and where it is in the tidal cycle.
This week's links are all about emotional intelligence. I've been thinking a lot about this concept lately since we talked about it quite a bit in my OB course last semester. Unlike IQ, you can train your EQ. I think our EQ has a lot to do with our upbringing, but you can certainly make a conscious effort to improve your EQ from wherever you start. All of these links are worth thinking about for leaders.
Read
What: from Aeon, The future is emotional, by Livia Gershon
https://aeon.co/essays/the-key-to-jobs-in-the-future-is-not-college-but-compassion
Why: "In the sphere of medicine, one of the toughest moments of a physician’s job is sitting with a patient, surveying how a diagnosis will alter the landscape of that patient’s life." That's from this Aeon article. I think it is spot on. Getting to true "patient centered" care is going to require higher levels of emotional intelligence on the part of physicians and other providers. Much of medical training is internalizing algorithmic decision making. But machines are much better at such decision making. As Tyler Cowen talks about in Average is Over, the future of medicine will be in the hands of providers who can interface with advanced diagnostic tools to bring to the table an understanding of social complexity that machines will never (or at least not soon) be able to handle. Future physicians and other providers will still have to understand the medicine and the algorithms the machines are running, but where they will add value is in bringing the emotional component.
Watch
What: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman from Animated Book Summary (9 minutes)
https://youtu.be/n6MRsGwyMuQ
Why: Goleman has done more to popularize the EI concept than any other author I am aware of. This is a nice summary of his book and some of the central concepts. Worth the less than 10 minutes, even if you have read the book.
Listen
What: The Emotional Intelligence Channel Podcast, A Week Full of Emotions (7 minutes)
http://www.summitconsultants.co.uk/?p=26
Why: I just discovered the podcast and I will be definitely listening to them in the future. This podcast has some simple exercises to help you think about EI.
That's it for this week! Wow - and that's a year of doing RWL! I hope you guys are still enjoying this. Drop me a line and let me know what you think. I really like hearing back from you about the links you liked.
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @bonicatalent .
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
Twitter: @bonicatalent
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau