Geetu Bharwaney

My response to an email from Geetu Bharwaney

The other day I got an email from Geetu Bharwaney.

I was afraid to put the whole email on my site because she might complain I am violating some kind of copyright and have my site shut down again, so I have decided to just copy some quotes from it.

Maybe I will write her and ask for her permission to put the whole thing on, I'm not sure yet. I don't really want to get into a debate with her. There are other things I'd rather be doing. Like taking pictures of Salta. But the letter has been bothering me enough for enough days now that I feel a need to write something. So here is what I am going to write...

First, she says she is going to "provide me" with "some (unsolicited) feedback" on my site. Then she says she "continuously" reviews other EI websites to try to keep "abreast" with what others are doing in the field and how this is "conveyed over the Internet worldwide." I am not sure why she felt a need to say all that, but anyhow, she said she wants to "improve the way we present information about emotional intelligence." I am not sure who she means by "we" because I don't think I am included in her group of friends and I know she isn't included in mine.Not that she is my enemy, but I haven't heard anything from her in years, except once or twice when she wrote to say she had changed her name or her website location or something.

One thing I resent about her letter is she said nothing at all about my personal life. I don't know if Geetu realizes that I have ever met Laura from Peru or how much I have cried, or how lonely I have been in the past few years before meeting Laura, or how many times I have thought about killing myself, or about the work I do with teenagers, or how much I resented what Rob Emmerling did. I don't know if Geetu even knows what Emmerling did or what I mean by the new word "Emmerlinged." There is no way she could be considered one of my friends if she doesn't know anything about all of this and if I don't know how she feels.

I really don't know who she thinks she is writing to. It seems she thinks she is not really writing to a human with feelings, unless she is trying to use human feelings to lay some guilt trips on me or influence me with lecturing to me like she might lecture to a small child. Well anyhow there are a lot of things I resent about the letter. Let's first name some feelings.

I felt lectured to, misunderstood, misrepresented, condescended to. There are probably more but I'll leave it there for now.

At the end, by the way, she says "All the best."

This is like being threatened by my hosting company to permanently drop my site and then saying "Have a great day", which is something one of their employees actually did. Probably without even realizing it.

Then she says "To improve the service that I think you are attempting to provide on your website, I believe that a more positive and comprehensive (rather than negative, selective and exclusive) approach would prove to be more appealing and compelling."

I am in kind of a laughing mood this morning and I have to laugh at that. First she is obviously guessing at what she thinks I am trying to do, rather than checking it out with me first. Then she starts telling me what she believes would be helpful. To her credit she realizes all of this is unsolicited, but she doesn't seem to be thinking much about how I might react. She doesn't seem to care much either. She never asks me how I feel about what she wrote for example, and never shows any understanding of how I feel about my site or the people I write about. I resent all of this, but I'm not sure right now what the more specific feeling word is. I am not sure either if Geetu has ever spent 20 minutes or more reading what I have said about resentment or anger being a secondary feeling. And I am not sure what she thinks about those sections of my site. I want to mention, though, that Geetu copied, with my permission, a large part of my feeling words list for her book she wrote a few years ago and she also cited me several times in it. I think as many times as she cited Goleman actually, so I don't want imply she is completely clueless about my work.

I also want to add that Geetu and I used to have more of a friendly personal correspondence, so I am not sure what happened. I tend to think she started making a fair bit of money off of the term emotional intelligence and off of re-selling the BarOn so-called test of EI.

Well I don't want to spend much time on this so I will try to summarize the rest of the letter. Geetu seems to want me to say that everyone's definition of EI is just fine with me. I don't know if she would want me to say that if a person defined EI as the ability to lie and con people to make money, then his definition is equally as valid as the Mayer Salovey definition, but this thought goes thru my mind. I also don't know if she would say that we could define an emotionally intelligent soldier as "someone who could obey orders to shoot unarmed people in the back as they are running away and not feel bad about it, and be able to sleep at night and laugh and drink with his buddies later, while totally putting it out of his mind."

This makes me think of the movie Ghandi. I believe Geetu's roots are in India where the British soldiers masaccred thousands of unarmed Indian people. So I feel regret that Geetu has not been more supportive of me in my attempts to move people away from the Goleman and BarOn definitions of EI. If you haven't read about it, by the way, BarOn used his experience in the Israeli military to help him develop a test of coping skills. So he found out what kind of people make good soldiers, and the he and Steven Stein called it a test of emotional intelligence.

Now one of the ways they are using the test is to predict "commanding leaders" in the Israeli military. Here is a quote from some marketing propaganda:

Reuven BarOn has been involved in numerous research projects related to emotional intelligence over the past two decades. A recent example includes a three-year study in the Israeli Defense Forces that empirically demonstrates the impact of EI on performance and its ability to predict command leadership.

I am guessing that what this means is that they gave the BarOn test to a lot of soldiers and then compared their results with those who make "good" leaders and they found out that there was a positive correlation. So this is why I say that BarOn's test predicts successful soldiers, though I am not totally sure if it is better at predicting the low level soldiers or the officers. Either way, I'm not too impressed and I strongly oppose him, MHS or anyone else calling the test a test of emotional intelligence.

Geetu also accuses me of giving out information which is not true or which is hard to prove. Well, if I am wrong about what I just said about BarOn and Stein, please let me know, Geetu, or anyone else.

What I have written about them has been up for months and no one has challenged it. The only thing Stein did was complain that I was violating his copyright on the MSCEIT test, which I would say is a pretty weak way of proving your case.

I invite Geetu, Reuven and Steven to correct me with facts and details and proof wherever they believe I am misrepresenting something.

Now Geetu says that BarOn is helping the field with all of his statistical research and blah blah blah. But to me he is not helping it no matter how much proof he has that his test predicts successful soldiers, insurance agents and hockey players if his tests is not really a test of emotional intelligence. If he is not actually testing EI, then his tests are misleading people. And that is exactly what I believe he is doing.

If I give a test of typing skills and say that it predicts successful secretaries and then I call the test a test of emotional intelligence, would this be okay with people like Geetu who think I am being too critical and "negative" on my site?

I want to make it very clear that I believe in the concept of emotional intelligence. I believe it is vitally important to our survival as a species. I believe a good understanding and application of it would help prevent wars, not identify obedient, stress-free soldiers.

In fact, I believe a good test of EI would help us predict who would not make a good soldier, but who would instead make a good advocate for peace.

Anyhow, here is another quote from Geetu. She is complaining about me posting personal information about people I criticize, but she doesn't tell me who she is talking about or give me any specifics I could use to double-check my facts. Yet she also accuses me of not scientifically proving my case either for my version of EI or against the definitions marketed by Goleman, Stein and BarOn.

She says:

Not only is it logical to question if you have received permission to post this highly sensitive personal information and the contents of personal communication with others regarding third parties (because this information is not forthcoming on your site), but I feel certain that what is really needed is to intellectually convince others of the validity, value and usability of the EI models you personally like.

I am not sure if Geetu has a PhD or not, but she sure sounds like she is dangerously close to losing touch with her feelings and becoming a victim of phidish. Look at how long and complicated her sentence is. I am not sure how she really feels, other than "certain" about what I need on my site. But she forgets a minor detail....that it is my site, not hers. David Caruso forgot this too last year when he tried to pressure me to change my site contents. I feel kind of offended and kind of possessive about my site. I like my site. I love my site in fact. It is where I express myself. Where I meet like minded people. Where I have fun and rant and rave. I am in love with my site and would definitely make love to it if that were somehow possible!

And it is where I help the teenagers. And - and this is very important - they like my site, too.

I take seriously what they tell me, but not what people like Geetu tell me. I lost a lot of respect for Geetu as a result of her email. I don't really feel hostile towards her, but I don't feel friendly towards her either.

Later she talks about "professional ethics" which shows she really doesn't understand how I feel about that term. I have written about it before but in her continuous reviews of EI sites I guess she missed that editorial. I doubt she will feel very enlightened when she reads what I wrote about the APA guidelines, for example, but I will put the link in at the bottom of this editorial, just in case anyone else wants to have a look.

Then she talks about "moral issues" but she doesn't explain what she means by the word "moral". She just assumes that I share her definition of it and that it is a word which has some emotional power with me. Actually, it is not a word I use and it is a word I dislike since it is so subjective.

Then she tells me that some of my information is "simply incorrect" and then says "

For example, Goleman, who completed his doctorate in psychology at Harvard and continued to lecture at that most prestigious university, conducted extensive research of this wider area over a two- to three-year period using hundreds of sources and interviewing tens of people in writing “Emotional Intelligence” – EVEN if you do not like the book, feel that is scientifically superficial and intellectually shallow, designed with the goal to make Goleman wealthy and famous, and/or if you simply dislike him as a person for some reason or another.

But this fails to show me where anything I have written is incorrect. I never said that Goleman didn't do any of that. But anyhow, I really have to laugh again when she says "that most prestigious university." Well, sorry but I am not too impressed with it. Nor am I too impressed with Yale, where David Caruso was a post-doctoral fellow in psychology and still thinks that people do things because they are evil.

And note how she says "EVEN" in caps. This is one of the reasons I felt lectured to. And then she implies I might be criticizing Goleman simply because I don't like him. Then she adds insult to injury by saying "for some reason or another" as if she has no idea why I might not like him.

What this implies to me is that she has not spent much time reading the page I have on Goleman. It is quite detailed and explains why I don't like Goleman pretty well, I'd say. Also, I don't just have my own opinions of Goleman, I have quotes from a lot of people. Maybe Geetu just didn't have the time to read all of my writing, for some reason or another. lol.

I am sorry to make fun of her. I don't really think she is a bad or "evil" person. She probably does feel strongly but has a hard time expressing her feelings with feeling words or taking responsibility for them. I am not sure, for example, why she really felt so motivated to write me and lecture to me. I feel a bit skeptical and cynical though. I suspect that one reason might be because she has been promoting BarOn's test and making money off of it. Maybe a lot of money. I really don't know, and I doubt she would want me to know.

Then she says I "dismiss Bar-On as if he were a demonic combination of a medieval alchemist and stereotypic Jew who is involved in this field for the money." I really don't believe that is fair to say, nor do I know how she came up with that combination. I do believe he has been overly influenced by the less healthy parts of the Jewish culture and I definitely dismiss him as a representative of anything called emotional intelligence, but the rest of what Geetu accuses me of seems pretty unfounded. If she wants to write back and be more specific, then I'd appreciate it because I want my criticism of BarOn to be taken seriously on its merits rather than just labeling him in the way Geetu seems to believe I portray him. For the record, I don't have much against BarOn personally. But I resent him making money off of the term emotional intelligence and going around claiming he coined the term EQ. If Geetu wants to show me some support for this claim, I'd like to see it. She seems to know him personally so maybe she can ask him for a copy of the unpublished draft of his PhD dissertation where he claims to have used it. If she sends it to me I promise I will post it on my site, with his permission of course.

This reminds me. Why doesn't Reuven or BarOn have a site of their own? Why do we know so little about them other than the marketing hype? Who are these people really?

Anyhow, then Geetu keeps defending BarOn and says again "(EVEN if you dislike it or him for one reason or another)". Once was bad enough, but she felt so strongly she had to repeat it.

I'd really like to quote more of what Geetu wrote, but I am afraid to, given the recent shut down of my site by Stein and MHS. Geetu tells me that BarOn has been honored by this and that group, but I am still not impressed. I can pretty much guarantee that none of the people who think BarOn's test is actually a test of emotional intelligence have read my page criticizing him. They probably haven't seen any criticism of him. I'd say this is because there are simply too many people making money off of his and Goleman's propaganda.

Then Geetu says that to reject his "findings and conclusions:" I would have to re-run the numerous studies that he and others have conducted. But what Geetu misses is that I am not rejecting his "findings and conclusions". I am rejecting his claim that his test is a test of emotional intelligence.

Like with the typing test. I don't care how many studies show that it is a good test of predicting fast typists. It still is not a test of emotional intelligence.

But to be more specific with respect to BarOn's test. Remember that BarOn perfected the test in the Israeli military. So we have a test that is good at predicting who will be "successful" soldiers. And it is not surprising to me that the same test would predict who would be good students in a typical school or business. The same kinds of qualities make a person "successful." For example, the abilities to obey, to compete, to memorize, to cope with unnatural stress, to not feel, and to put someone else's orders ahead of your own conscience and instinct.

Geetu also says that Goleman has praised BarOn's work but with Goleman's level of integrity, this is not much to boast about. On my page on Goleman I have several examples of him saying nice things about just about everyone and their sister. This is a very obvious way to make more friends and get your name in front of even more people.

Then Geetu says I have attacked other "well-intentioned contributions to this wider area". Now first let me talk about the well-intentioned part. What does this mean really? And who is to decide what is well-intentioned? Was Geetu's letter "well-intentioned" or was it self-serving? If I said "Oh, gosh, Geetu, you know you are right, thanks tons." And then I started promoting the BarOn test as the greatest thing since sex, wouldn't she likely make more money in the future than if I kept up my "attacks"?

Second, Geetu likes the idea of a "wider" area of emotional intelligence. In other words, she doesn't want the term EI restricted to the Mayer Salovey definition. She likes being able to tell her clients that the BarOn test is a "scientifically validated test of emotional intelligence". This sounds very impressive. I grant you that. But I say it is a lie. I say it is not a test of emotional intelligence. I am sorry that Geetu may be losing money because of my website, but I am not going to start saying I believe in something when I don't.

In addition to Goleman and Bar-On, you have also attacked others who have attempted make well-intentioned contributions to this wider area; however, these two examples will suffice to make my point. Steve, I truly think that if you could present the wider picture of this construct and the various ways it is studied, measured and applied, whilst acknowledging the ever-increasing number of contributions in the field, you would truly succeed in reaching a larger group of people.

Then Geetu ends her letter with this. She almost sounds like Rob Emmerling when she says "simply"

This is simply (unsolicited) food for thought based on my observations.

All the best, Geetu

------------------------------------------------------
Geetu Bharwaney
Founder
Ei World
4 Doolittle Mill
Ampthill
Bedfordshire MK45 2ND
England (
UK )
Tel: +44-(0)1525-840090
Fax: +44-(0)1525-840092
Email: gbharwaney@eiworld.org
Web: www.eiworld.org

Then she has 10 lines of legal stuff, which seems a bit "over the top" to me!

By the way, if you are reading this, Geetu, and feel "copyright infringed", then please let me know rather than writing to my hosting service. I promise I will edit it and I will feel thankful you wrote to me first, not resentful that you didn't.

Steve Hein
March 24, 2006
Salta, Argentina

More thoughts..

It seems BarOn and MHS are being more careful now about not calling the BarOn EQi a test of emotional intelligence. They sometimes now call it a test of "social emotional intelligence" On Geetu's website, though, she is still saying that the EQi is of the the three emotional intelligence tests her company offers.

She says "We offer 3 different emotional intelligence assessments" then lists two versions of the EQi test and then the MSCEIT.

I found out that Geetu and Reuven also co-published an article together, so this would make it more understandable why she would want to defend Reuven and persuade me to stop criticizing him so much. Here is the article citation: (Geetu was formerly Geetu Orme)

Orme, Geetu and Bar-On, Reuven (2002), “The contribution of emotional intelligence to organisational effectiveness”, Competency & Emotional Intelligence, vol. 9 no.4,Summer, pp.23–28.

Links

Phidish
Reuven BarOn
MHS
Steven Stein
Daniel Goleman
David Caruso
Emotionally intelligent soldiers