Artificial Emotional Intelligence Predicts Election Results

Research long ago revealed that the portion of the brain that lights up when politics are being discussed is the emotional area–the limbic/amygdala area of the brain–not the rational prefrontal cortex. In short, politics is not a topic about which we are rational–a conclusion that these days may be particularly apparent.

Gauging emotional reactions–how people feel–is more and more the measure for determining strategies in advertising, marketing, and communication of all types, but here is a recent example of how important “how people feel” is to not only their purchasing preferences but their political preferences as well.

A political forecasting tool using artificial emotional intelligence recently accurately predicted the outcome of the Illinois governor race. BPU Holdings’ ZimGo Polling reported on November 5^th that Pritzker would win the race with 52% of the vote vs. Rauner’s 39%, falling within 2% of the actual results. The Korean version of the product proved more accurate than six other polling services in the most recent South Korean presidential election.

Crowing about its accuracy, ZimGo Polling is claiming that its product proves that “older legacy polling methods”–using the telephone or other intrusive methods–“have earned their place in the history books alongside the outdated rotary phone and the floppy disk.” Simply asking people how they intend to vote is no longer reliable. That is, in the end, a rational question to an emotional condition.

This new product’s results are achieved by accurately assessing emotional sentiment by sifting through the half billion daily tweets and other public forums touching on the race. The program scores entire paragraphs, including emoticons, and can interpret slang. Seth Grimes, principal analyst for Alta Plana, which specializes in natural language processing, confirms that, “Attention shares and decisions are driven as much by emotion as by fact. Today’s competitive campaigns apply technology to understand both fact and feeling and shape opinion.”

BPU Holdings promotes itself as a company “dedicated to generating the most advanced, usable, secure and innovative Artificial Emotional Intelligence (AEI) technology in the world. Artificial Intelligence (AI) emulates how people think — AEI emulates how people feel.” That certainly sounds like one for the importance of emotional intelligence.

But note Grimes’ last point. Not only is emotion the better gauge of how people intend to vote but it may also be one of the better vehicles for changing opinions. Therein lies the challenge for regulators and the public at large. Emotional intelligence, the real human variety, gives people the tools to recognize, understand and manage their own and others’ emotions. It is, however, a value-neutral ability; that is, it can be used toward achieving any end, whether socially good or bad. Simply being able to employ emotionally intelligent strategies–strategies that successfully appeal to the emotions–is not necessarily what’s best for the country at large, even if they garner the most votes.

So here we have a conundrum. Do people know in a rational way what’s good for the country politically? Or do they just like to feel good? Emotional intelligence at its best engages the cognitive part of the brain to help assess emotional data and responses. As Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman pointed out in his best-selling Thinking Fast and Slow, combining the strengths of both emotions (his System 1) and rational thought (his System 2) achieves the best results.

Politics may well be an area where engaging our rational thought to test and try our emotional preferences is highly advisable. Yes, puppies are adorable, and something like “puppies for all” might be emotionally appealing. And maybe even politically or economically possible. But we have to leaven those emotional reactions–which make us feel compassionate or generous or empowered–with rational input.

Using Emotional Intelligence Testing in Hiring

By Ronda Muir on January 16, 2019 Posted in Emotional Intelligence, Recruitment, Retention, Risk Management, Uncategorized

A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology confirmed that emotional intelligence can be a highly effective gauge for measuring an employee’s suitability. To meet that need, the researchers at the Universities of Geneva and Berne, Switzerland, developed assessments for employers to use during the hiring process to determine a candidate’s levels of sensitivity to and recognition of emotions.

To create these tests, the researchers interviewed over 40 managers of Swiss-based firms to determine the attributes managers thought most important. The tests use video clips featuring actors in work-related situations and pose accompanying questions that ask how candidates would handle anger, sadness, fear, inappropriate happiness and other emotions in the workplace.

Before the assessments were released, they were tested on 800+ participants between the ages of 20 and 60, which confirmed what other research shows, that people scoring high in the ability to regulate their emotions tend to earn a slightly higher salary, that women generally score higher than men, particularly on interpreting nonverbal expressions of emotion, and that “emotional intelligence increases with age and experience, meaning it’s a faculty that can be improved and developed.” Some of the assessments are awaiting further development before being made public, but several are already available online.

Best Wishes for the Happiest of Holidays! And a Gift

By Ronda Muir on December 21, 2018 Posted in Announcements, Books, Emotional Intelligence

Everyone at Law People Management wish you and yours the happiest of holidays! May you travel safe, enjoy the company of family and friends, and experience the profit of a successful career and the peace of a life well-lived.

For a more emotionally intelligent 2019, the ABA is offering a 20% discount off the applicable member price on Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence and other ABA titles using discount code ‘OURGIFT18.’

ENJOY!

Emotional Intelligence Makes You Run Faster and Play Harder and Win!

By Ronda Muir on December 11, 2018 Posted in Coaching, Culture, Emotional Intelligence, Management, Mentoring, Productivity, Recruitment, Retention, Risk Management, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Wellness, Work/Life Balance

If there were any question as to whether emotional intelligence positively impacts every endeavor, research has recently verified that even athletes benefit from EI. A study of marathon runners showed that, of 237 runners, those with higher emotional intelligence finish half-marathons faster than their low EI competitors, even after controlling for the effects of physical training and the number of half marathons run in the past.

The researchers found that those who can control their emotions tend to have better times. “My co-authors and I are all interested in how emotions influence human behavior,” said Enrico Rubaltelli, one of the authors of the study. ”The ability to overcome fatigue while running is a fundamental question and we were convinced that it depended greatly on people’s ability to manage their emotions.”

This phenomenon has been played out in coaching as well. In 2016, Jeffrey Lurie, the owner of the Eagles, Philadelphia’s football team, announced that “emotional intelligence” was a trait he was looking for in the next man to fill the Eagles’ head coaching job. People laughed about that phrase, but Doug Pederson fit the bill and went on to coach the Eagles to a 2018 Super Bowl win. Pederson has credited the team’s performance at least in part to his emotional connection to the players:

“I think that having the connection, having been in the locker room, having an understanding of the dynamic of what a team needs, what a team should feel, how we should practice, how we should play, when to take the pads off, when to put the pads back on, I think all of that is part of that emotional intelligence that we all — and I try to strive for and to have with the guys. I think that relationship has gone a long way this season.”

Even though the Eagles have suffered some tough defeats since that Super Bowl win, Pederson is still viewed as “the ultimate players’ coach.” As one commentator said, “he might not always do the right thing…but Pederson always acts with his heart.”

As a followup to the success Pederson as had, the team has made it clear that they are also looking for emotional intelligence in their draft prospects, as well.

The value of looking for players who display emotional intelligence is validated by research on the emotional intelligence of NHL hockey players. A Canadian study correlated the players’ emotional intelligence with the number of points scored and games played. While length of time since the draft correlated positively with performance, so did “intrapersonal competency”–which encompasses self-awareness, emotional understanding and emotional management skills–and emotional mood. A study of retired NFL players also pointed to emotional intelligence as a significant factor in post-play professional and personal success, health and happiness, concluding: “Athletes with greater emotional intelligence are likely to be more successful in life.”

The same factors that figure in successful sports teams–emotional awareness, understanding and management–are the factors that make individuals, teams and organizations successful in business and law.

A Shared Tragedy

By Ronda Muir on November 23, 2018 Posted in Books, Culture, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Management, Retention, Risk Management, Teamwork, Wellness

As we count our Thanksgiving blessings, we should remember the many lawyers (and their friends and families) who are not feeling blessed, but rather tormented by the life they are leading in the law.

As most are aware by now, Gabe MacConaill, a young bankruptcy partner at Sidley Austin, died in October from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the parking garage of the firm’s Los Angeles office. His wife has written a heart-wrenching tribute to her husband that points a finger not only at herself for not realizing the gravity of Gabe’s distress, but also at the law firm he worked for: “Big Law Killed My Husband.”

His workload, the expectation of perfection and the unrelenting pace in an environment that frowned on seeking help made him a prime candidate for a breakdown, if not suicide, she alleges.

She mentions that he suffered from a “deep, hereditary mental health disorder.” Many other lawyers have similar conditions and struggle with impairment and suicidal impulses. As reviewed in Beyond Smart, research makes it clear that lawyers suffer at a disproportionately high rate from mental illness, and it starts in law school, culminating in male lawyers committing suicide at twice the rate of non-lawyer males and huge swaths of both male and female lawyers drowning their misery in drugs and alcohol.

The firm’s public reaction to Gabe’s death has been compassionate, as expected, with apparent recognition of the tragedy of his death and the necessity of raising awareness. But the real question remains whether Sidley Austin– or the many other firms where lawyers are suffering from exhaustion and feelings of failure–are going to truly, systematically deal with a well-documented, industry-wide threat in a smart, compassionate way. Not just by signing pledges or discouraging drinking at firm events, although those kinds of steps are laudable, but by going beyond lip-service and band aids to instituting firm-wide programs based on sound principles of behavioral science that recognize and support those (unfortunately many) brilliant lawyers on their teams of whom so much is asked but who may not feel they can ask for help.

For that, we would all be thankful.

Vote for Law People for Best Legal Blog!

By Ronda Muir on November 13, 2018 Posted in Announcements

We are proud to announce that Law People has been nominated from a field of hundreds to compete in The Expert Institute’s Best Legal Blog Contest, one of the largest competitions for legal blog writing online today.

Now it is up to the readers to select the very best of the blogs with an open voting format that allows participants one vote per blog. Each blog will compete for rank within its category, with the three blogs that receive the most votes in any category to be crowned overall winners.

The competition runs from November 5th until the close of voting at 12:00 AM on December 17th.

Vote for Law People by casting your vote through one of the social media platforms here.

Exhaustion: Building a Successful, Sustainable Legal Organization

By Ronda Muir on November 8, 2018 Posted in Client Service, Compensation, Emotional Intelligence, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Professional Development, Profitability, Risk Management, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Wellness, Work Satisfaction

Paul Rawlinson, Baker McKenzie’s Global Chair, stepped down temporarily from his position last month. The firm’s announcement read in part:

“Based on the advice of his doctor, in response to medical issues caused by exhaustion, Paul has decided to take a step back from Firm leadership and client responsibilities to make his health and recovery his immediate priority.”

While we don’t know the particulars of Mr. Rawlinson’s situation, the legal profession generally seems similarly overcome.

In September of 2017, a year after the release of a survey that found the levels of problem drinking and mental health issues in the legal profession significantly higher than in previous studies, the ABA Working Group to Advance Well-Being in the Legal Profession was formed. The Working Group published a well-being toolkit for law firms, to which Muir contributed, and announced in September 2018 that several firms had signed a pledge to focus more on lawyer mental health. It is unclear whether Bake McKenzie was among them.

Pundits everywhere have weighed in on the causes of these increasingly troublesome mental health breakdowns among our ranks. As discussed in Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence, Muir’s research has uncovered some tantalizing correlations. The LSAT’s deductive-style questions apparently favor those who are slightly depressed, indicating even before entering law school a population possibly not able to manage their emotions well. There are also indications that law school may further alienate students from recognizing, and then being in a position to deal with, their emotional states. Pessimism, long recognized as a pervasive career asset among lawyers, nonetheless has some potentially unattractive side effects both personally and professionally, making collaboration, relationship-building and maintenance, risk-taking, innovation and reaching out for help more difficult. All of which can lead to isolation and a spiral downward because of little personal support.

Firm practices often reinforce or compound these personal tendencies. Those so accused include compensation plans:

“Compensation systems intentionally incentivize lawyers to work as hard and as long as they can… [m]agnifying and exploiting lawyers’ weakness for individual achievement and financial gain…”

We all know that practicing law can be a taxing and stressful endeavor. Yet there are a number of steps legal organizations can, and certainly should, take to improve the mental health of their troops. The first question, however, is whether we are even going to consider that endeavor to be a valuable undertaking? Exactly what does it take–beyond statistical exclamations and individual carnage–to make that a priority?

Congratulations to Baker McKenzie for at least copping to their Global Chair’s impairment and offering support and a way back home. Who is next?

Standing Room Only Crowds at the EI Programs at the 2018 IBA Annual Conference

By Ronda Muir on October 12, 2018 Posted in Announcements, Books, Business Development, Client Service, Communication, Conflict, Culture, Decision-Making, Diversity, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Productivity, Professional Development, Profitability, Recruitment, Retention, Risk Management, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Work Satisfaction

Friday, October 12th was the last day of the 2018 annual IBA conference being held in Rome, Italy. Over 7,000 lawyers from around the world converged on the Eternal City to listen to dozens and dozens of programs on topics of interest, including updates in subject matter expertise, innovations in legal process and other subjects of rising interest.

Muir spoke on a late-afternoon panel on Monday that discussed winning and retaining clients through cross cultural understanding. In spite of its late time and competing programs, the room was full and the panelists, representing Brazil, Finland, Japan, the UK and the US, covered obvious and less obvious aspects of working cross-culturally, including considerations of gender, religion, deductive vs inductive thinking styles, civil vs common law traditions, and emotional intelligence.

On Thursday morning, Muir participated on a panel, chaired by New York lawyer Mark Hsu, on Emotional Intelligence and the Law that included speakers from Scotland, Germany, Hungary and New York. Drawing from her book Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence, Muir gave an overview of how using emotional intelligence skills in the unique context of law practice helps lawyers have a more successful and satisfying career.

Panelists discussed how important achieving an emotional equilibrium is to managers of firms and departments, to getting and keeping clients, and to dealing with professional and personal stress, and made suggestions on how to improve lawyers’ EI skills.

Although attendance had generally fallen off at working sessions by Thursday and panelists were expecting a sparse crowd, in fact the double room was filled to capacity with the overflow standing in the corridor.

The takeaway from this conference is the good news that emotional intelligence is a topic of increasing interest and relevance to lawyers around the world.

Can Emotional Intelligence Be Trained?

By Ronda Muir on October 4, 2018 Posted in Assessments, Coaching, Culture, Decision-Making, Emotional Intelligence, Innovation, Law Departments, Leadership, Management, Mentoring, Professional Development, Recruitment, Retention, Uncategorized, Work Satisfaction, Work/Life Balance

That is the primary question. Now that emotional intelligence is well established as a major net positive in virtually every profession, what can be done to raise one’s emotional intelligence?

The most recent evidence of the efficacy of emotional training comes in a study of doctors announced last month that found that EI training improved resident physicians’ emotional intelligence. The training was undertaken with a specific goal of protecting doctors against burnout, which the study noted “has reached alarming levels, with one study finding it affects at least half of all doctors. Burnout is defined as overwhelming exhaustion, cynicism, detachment from work and a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.” Research has shown a consistent relationship between high physician burnout and low patient safety and quality of care, a result that, of course, also impacts hospitals’ bottom line.

In this study published in the journal Advances in Medical Education and Practice, doctors took a test measuring their emotional intelligence both before and after completing the training. The results after the training showed significant increases in their scores for overall emotional intelligence, stress management and overall wellness. The training was integrated into the regular resident educational curriculum, with a focus on “self-awareness (being aware of your emotions), self-management (ability to manage your emotional reactions to situations and people), social awareness (ability to pick up emotions in others) and social skill. The educational intervention included didactic teaching, discussions and videos.”

This latest study comes on the heels of a new, May 2018 meta-analysis— i.e., an exhaustive review of EI-training studies–which again says resoundingly “yes, emotional training works!” An analysis of 58 published and unpublished studies that included an emotional intelligence training program showed an average moderate positive effect for training emotional intelligence, regardless of design, gender of participants, and type of EI measure (ability v. mixed model). The increase was larger when discussion of the meaning of the construct and how it applies to the participants was included and was significantly larger when there was practice and feedback incorporated into the training. No significant differences in training effectiveness were found between programs based on ability and mixed-model EI theories.

That meta-analysis followed by only months another one (published in September 2017) reviewing 24 EI training studies that also found emotional intelligence training to be effective. This study found more nuances in the effectiveness of various types of training programs, with those based on the abilities-based MSCEIT model formulated by Mayer, Salovey and Caruso showing the most effectiveness. It also found that raising the ability to understand emotions–how they differ, develop and evolve and are best used–accounted for significantly higher results, a reflection of the critical importance of that ability in the ability to actually manage emotions. This study concluded that a fixed schedule (averaging 6 sessions, each with 2.5 hours duration) with defined individual goals for participants works best, although the training effectiveness increases as the length of training increases. For a more extensive discussion of these and earlier studies particularly as they apply to lawyers, see this recently published Psycholawlogy post.

The good news is that study after study and meta-analysis after meta-analysis confirms that emotional intelligence can be raised through training, which is particularly good news for law students and lawyers everywhere.

Join Us at the Annual International Bar Association Meeting in Rome

By Ronda Muir on October 4, 2018 Posted in Announcements, Books, Business Development, Client Service, Communication, Compensation, Conflict, Culture, Decision-Making, Diversity, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics, Innovation, Law Departments, Law Education, Leadership, Management, Mentoring, Productivity, Professional Development, Profitability, Recruitment, Retention, Risk Management, Teamwork, Uncategorized, Wellness, Work Satisfaction, Work/Life Balance

For those attending the International Bar Association annual meeting in Rome this upcoming week of October 7, Muir will be speaking on a 4:15 pm panel on Monday, October 8th–chaired by Peter Alfandary, Esq.–that will be discussing winning and retaining clients through cross cultural understanding. Related to emotional and social intelligence in several respects, cross cultural “intelligence” has become increasingly important with the arrival of a truly global legal marketplace.

On Thursday, October 11 at 11:15 am, Muir will be participating on a panel chaired by Mark Hsu, Esq, on emotional intelligence and the law. Drawing from her book Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence, the first comprehensive guide to understanding, using and raising emotional intelligence in the unique context of law practice, Muir and the panel will delve into the origins and physiology of emotional intelligence and how it helps practicing lawyers have a more successful and satisfying career.

Join us in exploring these important subjects!