3. Emotional Intelligence: Technology doesn’t drive projects, people do

If you want to do good work, you have to be able to motivate the people doing the work. The web is about people: they make it and they use it. Learning to work with the emotions that drive all people is key to a successful project.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss

• What emotional intelligence is

• How to merge emotions and the workplace in a new professionalism

• Why emotional intelligence is important

• What emotional intelligence looks like in action

• Why caring is the bottom line

Emotions affect everything people do: every exchange, every conversation, every task—even in business. Think about it. The stock market rises and falls based on how investors feel about the market’s stability; the consumer confidence index fluctuates based on the way people feel about the economy. These metrics that we think of as business are driven by feelings—some rational and fact-based and some not. Sometimes hard numbers say one thing, but a pervasive mood can override logic.