Nova: SImons, you've managed teams in the tech world for over 15 years. You've surely encountered the 'brilliant jerk'—that incredibly talented engineer or designer who is just impossible to work with. We're often told the solution is to coach their 'Emotional Intelligence.' But what if that's completely wrong? What if we're trying to fix a fleeting mood when the real issue is a permanent feature of their personality?

SImons: That question hits home, Nova. It's a classic, almost mythical, challenge in product development. You have someone who can produce incredible work, but they leave a trail of frustrated colleagues behind them. And you're right, the go-to playbook is always about EQ, communication workshops, and giving feedback on their 'tone.' It often feels like a temporary patch on a recurring problem. So, the idea that we might be misdiagnosing the root cause is... well, it's incredibly intriguing.

Nova: Exactly. And that's why I'm so excited to talk about this book today. We're diving into Dr. Richard Davis's "Good Judgment: Making Decisions That Matter," which argues for a radical shift in how we assess and understand people. Today we'll dive deep into this from two perspectives. First, we'll challenge the corporate obsession with EQ and explore why personality is a more robust guide for leaders. Then, we'll get incredibly practical and discuss how to create a 'user's manual' for your colleagues, transforming how you hire, manage, and influence your team.

SImons: I'm ready. It sounds like we're about to upgrade our entire operating system for people management.

Nova: We are! And Dr. Davis doesn't pull any punches. He opens a chapter with a bold, almost provocative statement: "Emotional intelligence as popularly conceived is, to be blunt, bullshit." He argues that what most companies call EQ is a messy cocktail of actual emotional ability, personality traits, and just general good behavior. It's not a reliable predictor of success.

SImons: That's a strong claim, but it resonates. EQ can feel so vague and hard to measure. It's often used as a catch-all for "I don't like how that person made me feel."

Nova: Precisely. And he illustrates the danger of this fuzzy thinking with a powerful story. Let's talk about a senior partner at a major law firm, we'll call him David. David was a rainmaker, brilliant in court, and brought in huge clients. But internally, he was a terror. He was known for being abusive, impulsive, and his behavior was creating a toxic environment. The crisis hit a peak when, during a heated argument, he actually spat on a junior colleague.

SImons: Wow. Okay, that's... extreme. That goes way beyond just being a 'jerk.'

Nova: Way beyond. So, the firm's HR department, following the standard corporate playbook, immediately framed it as an emotional intelligence problem. They thought, "David can't regulate his emotions. He needs EQ training." But they brought in Dr. Davis for a deeper psychological assessment before they decided whether to fire him.

SImons: And what did he find? I'm guessing it wasn't just a lack of EQ.

Nova: Not at all. Dr. Davis conducted a deep-dive interview, exploring David's entire life journey. He found that David's core personality was a mix of high energy, persuasiveness, and risk-tolerance—all fantastic traits for a trial lawyer. But he was also, by nature, deeply anxious, impulsive, and combustible. These weren't fleeting emotions he was failing to manage; they were stable, enduring parts of who he was. His aggression wasn't a momentary lapse in EQ; it was a predictable outcome of his personality under stress.

SImons: That is a game-changing distinction. It's the difference between debugging a single line of code that threw an error versus realizing the entire architecture is flawed. The 'bug'—in this case, the outburst—will just keep reappearing in different forms if you don't address the underlying structure.

Nova: That's the perfect analogy. So the solution wasn't a two-hour EQ workshop. Dr. Davis recommended intensive therapy to help David become aware of these deep-seated behavioral tendencies and develop strategies to manage them. Because he was a top performer, the firm invested in it. And over time, David learned to control his impulses. He stayed at the firm and continued to thrive, but without the toxic behavior. They addressed the personality, not the symptom.

SImons: This really reframes the leader's role. We spend so much time giving feedback on specific incidents—"In that meeting, your tone was dismissive"—but this book suggests we should be looking for the underlying pattern. It's about understanding the 'why' behind the behavior. So how does this 'perceptivity,' as the book calls it, differ from just being a good judge of character?

Nova: That is the perfect question, and it leads us right to the book's most practical tool. Because if good judgment is about understanding stable personality, we need a framework. And even more, we need a way to apply it. This brings us to the idea of creating a 'user's manual' for your colleagues.

SImons: A 'user's manual' for a person? Okay, as a Product Manager, my interest is officially piqued. Tell me more.

Nova: (laughs) I thought it would be! Dr. Davis simplifies the complex world of personality into a practical framework he calls the Personality Blueprint, which is an adaptation of the scientifically-validated Big Five model. The five categories are Intellect, Emotionality, Sociability, Drive, and Diligence. It's a simple mental checklist you can use when observing someone.

SImons: So it’s a way to organize your observations. I like that. It’s structured.

Nova: Exactly. And the 'user's manual' is where you put this into action. Let me give you another great story from the book. A private equity firm was about to acquire a fast-growing company called Platinum Jewelers. The founder, Danielle, was brilliant—creative, ambitious, a real visionary. But the investors knew she was also difficult. She could be abrasive, impulsive, and didn't like being managed.

SImons: Sounds familiar. The brilliant but difficult founder. A common archetype.

Nova: A very common one. The senior partner at the PE firm, Joe, was her polar opposite: an engineer by training, very logical, analytical, and conservative. They were headed for a massive personality clash. So, Dr. Davis was brought in to help them navigate this. After assessing Danielle, he created a 'user's manual' for her that he gave to the investment team.

SImons: What was in it?

Nova: It was a simple guide to working with her. For example, under 'Drive,' it noted she's highly ambitious but motivated by creative vision, not just money. So the advice was: 'To influence her, frame feedback around the shared vision for the brand, not just the quarterly numbers.' Under 'Sociability,' it noted she's intense and can be abrasive. The advice: 'Don't take her bluntness personally. It's not about you; it's her default style. Be direct and data-driven in your replies.' It was a roadmap for how to interact with her to get the best results and avoid conflict.

SImons: A user manual... I love that. It's like creating a personal API documentation for your team members. As a PM, my job is to get different functions—engineering, design, marketing—to work together seamlessly. This isn't about labeling people; it's about understanding their operating parameters to reduce friction and improve the system's overall performance.

Nova: What a fantastic way to put it! A personal API.

SImons: Absolutely. For instance, knowing a lead engineer is high on 'Intellect' and 'Diligence' but low on 'Sociability' means you give them the complex problem space to explore alone first, rather than throwing them into a chaotic, unstructured brainstorming session. You're setting them up for success based on their natural tendencies. Conversely, for a designer who is high on 'Sociability' and 'Intellect,' you'd want them in that collaborative session from day one.

Nova: You've just perfectly demonstrated the power of this concept. It's proactive, not reactive.

SImons: It is. But it also brings up a critical point: trust. The key would be building the psychological safety to even create or use such a manual. How do you introduce this concept without it feeling clinical or like you're putting people in a box?

Nova: That's a crucial consideration. The author suggests it starts with the leader. A leader can create their own user manual and share it with the team, saying, "Here's how I work best. Here are my quirks. Here's what I need from you." That act of vulnerability makes it a shared tool for collaboration, not a top-down judgment.

Nova: So, as we bring this all together, it feels like two big ideas have emerged. First, we need to look past the fleeting, fuzzy signals of popular EQ to the stable, underlying architecture of personality. That's where the real predictive power lies.

SImons: And second, we can make this incredibly practical. We can move from just having a 'gut feeling' about someone to having a structured way of thinking about them using a simple blueprint. And the 'user manual' or 'personal API' concept is a brilliant, actionable way to use those insights to build better teams.

Nova: It really is. So, for everyone listening today, what's one thing they could do this week to start putting this into practice?

SImons: I think it starts small. For anyone listening, especially leaders, here's a simple experiment. Pick one person on your team you find challenging to work with. Don't judge them. Just observe for a week, using that simple five-part blueprint Nova mentioned: Intellect, Emotionality, Sociability, Drive, and Diligence. Jot down one or two objective observations for each category. You're not diagnosing them; you're just building the first page of their user manual. I guarantee that simple act of structured observation will fundamentally change how you approach your very next conversation with them. It shifts you from a place of frustration to a place of curiosity. And for a leader, curiosity is everything.

Nova: From frustration to curiosity. That’s a powerful place to end. SImons, thank you for bringing your insight to this. It’s been a fantastic conversation.

SImons: The pleasure was all mine, Nova. This was great.