Mark: For years, we've all been told that Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is the secret to success. But what if the entire concept is, to be blunt, 'bullshit'? What if the key to making better decisions about people lies in something else entirely? Michelle: Wow, okay, starting with a bombshell. That’s a pretty bold claim, considering EQ is a billion-dollar industry. Who is throwing this grenade into the world of pop psychology? Mark: That is the explosive premise of the instant bestseller Good Judgment by Dr. Richard Davis. And he’s not just some random hot-take artist. Michelle: Right, I looked him up. This is a top organizational psychologist who has spent decades in the trenches, advising CEOs and investors at the highest levels—we're talking major corporations and even professional sports leagues. He’s seen firsthand how bad people-judgments can sink a company. Mark: Exactly. His entire argument is that we've been sold a faulty tool. He believes good judgment is, in essence, good people judgment. And to get that right, we need to look past fleeting emotions and understand the stable, underlying architecture of personality. Michelle: Okay, I'm intrigued and skeptical. So you're saying we need to throw out everything we've learned about EQ? Mark: Well, let's just say Dr. Davis makes a very compelling case that we need to demote it, significantly. He argues that what we call EQ is often just a messy bundle of personality traits and social niceties, and it's a terrible predictor of long-term behavior.

Michelle: Hold on, that's a huge claim. Why is he so against it? People build entire leadership programs around improving EQ. Mark: Because he's seen where it fails. His point is that emotions are temporary states. Someone can seem empathetic and calm in an interview, but that tells you very little about who they are under pressure, day in and day out. Personality, on the other hand, is stable. It's the core of who we are. Michelle: That makes sense in theory, but do you have an example of where this distinction actually matters? Mark: He has a perfect one. He tells the story of a major law firm that was about to fire one of its senior partners, let's call him David. David was brilliant, a top performer, but he was also known for being abusive. The final straw was an incident where he actually spat on a colleague. Michelle: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that sounds like a fireable offense. I'm guessing HR's diagnosis was 'low emotional intelligence'? Mark: You nailed it. They saw it as an EQ problem. But they brought Davis in for a final assessment before letting him go. Davis did a deep-dive interview and psychological testing, and he found something different. David wasn't just an angry guy; he had a specific personality profile. He was anxious, impulsive, and deeply combustible, traits that were rooted in a traumatic childhood. But he was also incredibly energetic and persuasive, which is what made him a great lawyer. Michelle: So the problem wasn't a lack of emotional control in the moment, it was a fundamental part of his personality engine. What happened? Mark: Instead of firing him, they got him into therapy to understand his own behavioral tendencies—his personality. He learned to recognize his triggers and develop strategies to manage his impulses. He stayed at the firm, his behavior improved dramatically, and he continued to be a top asset. The EQ lens would have just gotten him fired. The personality lens saved his career and fixed the problem. Michelle: Wow. That's a powerful story. So if EQ is the wrong tool, what's the right one? He keeps mentioning this idea of 'perceptivity'. What does that actually mean? Mark: Perceptivity is the core idea of the book. It's the skill of understanding and assessing human personality. Davis argues it’s like a cognitive muscle. It’s not about reading someone's mood today; it's about understanding who they are likely to be tomorrow, next month, and next year. And the good news is, it's a skill you can train.

Michelle: Okay, 'training a cognitive muscle' sounds great, but also a little abstract. How do you actually do it? When you meet someone new, there's so much information coming at you. It's overwhelming. Mark: He has a name for that exact feeling: the 'Too Much Data' problem. He tells a hilarious and very relatable story about his first date with a girl named Eva in high school, who would later become his wife of 30 years. He was trying so hard to figure her out—what she said, how she said it, her body language—that he just got lost in the noise and came away with no clear picture of her at all. Michelle: Oh, I have been there. It’s like trying to drink from a firehose. You end up with nothing but a wet shirt. Mark: Exactly. And he says this is why we need a framework, a way to filter the noise and focus on what matters. That's where his 'Personality Blueprint' comes in. It’s a simplified, practical version of the 'Big Five' personality model, which is about as close to a scientific law as psychology gets. Michelle: So it's like instead of that firehose, you just have a few buckets to catch the important stuff? What are the buckets? Mark: Just five. He renames them to be more intuitive. There's Intellect, which is about how people think. Emotionality, which is how they express emotion. Sociability, or how they engage with others. Drive, which is why they do what they do. And finally, Diligence, which is how they get things done. Michelle: I like that. Intellect, Emotionality, Sociability, Drive, Diligence. It's simple and it covers the major bases. It feels like a mental filing system you can use in any conversation. Mark: That's the whole point. He actually learned this skill as a kid. He and his mother used to play a game on the subway in Toronto. They'd pick a stranger and invent a whole life story for them based on tiny observational details—their shoes, their posture, the way they held their newspaper. Michelle: That's the 'Subway Game' he talks about! So he was training his perceptivity muscle without even realizing it. He was learning to look for signals in the noise. Mark: Precisely. The Personality Blueprint is just a more structured version of that game. It gives you five key areas to look for signals, so you can start building a hypothesis about who someone is, rather than just being overwhelmed by data. But he's also clear that this is just the start. Context is everything.

Michelle: Okay, a mental framework is great for a subway ride, but how does this translate into a high-stakes decision? I mean, how does this actually prevent you from making a huge mistake, like hiring the wrong person or making a bad investment? Mark: This is where the book gets really fascinating, because he shares stories where this framework saved people from losing millions of dollars. There's a great one about a private equity firm that was about to invest in a fast-growing company. All the financials looked perfect. The strategy was sound. But as a final step, they hired Davis to assess the leadership team. Michelle: A final gut check, basically. Mark: A very scientific gut check. He interviewed the CEO, a guy named Jay, and his Personality Blueprint came back with some major red flags. Jay was skeptical, he didn't embrace change, he was unempathetic, and he wasn't motivated by commercial success. He was the perfect guy to start the company, but he had the absolute wrong personality to scale it. Michelle: What did Davis tell the firm? Mark: He told them to walk away. And they did, even after spending a fortune on due diligence. A few years later, the company failed. Other investors lost everything because Jay and his team couldn't grow the business, just as Davis's personality assessment predicted. Michelle: That is incredible. It's like having a superpower. It’s not just business, either. He talks about how this was used in one of the most famous peace negotiations in history, right? Mark: Yes, the Camp David Accords in 1978. President Carter had the CIA do personality profiles on the leaders of Israel and Egypt. They found that Egypt's leader, Sadat, was a narcissist obsessed with his legacy, while Israel's leader, Begin, was deeply suspicious and obsessed with tiny details. Michelle: Two totally different personality blueprints. Mark: And Carter used that insight brilliantly. He appealed to Sadat's ego and his desire for a grand, historic peace. And he convinced the detail-oriented Begin to leave the minutiae to his subordinates and focus on the big picture with Sadat. It worked. It led to an enduring peace treaty. That's the power of perceptivity on a global scale. Michelle: That's amazing for presidents and private equity firms. But let's bring it back to us mere mortals. The book also turns the lens inward, right? It talks about our own 'derailers'—the idea that our greatest strengths can become our biggest weaknesses. Mark: Absolutely. This might be the most practical part of the book. He references a famous assessment tool called the Hogan Development Survey, which identifies eleven common 'derailers'—personality traits that are fine in moderation but become toxic under stress. Michelle: Like what? Give me an example. Mark: For instance, being 'Bold' is great. It means you're confident. But being too bold means you're arrogant and can't admit mistakes. Being 'Diligent' is a huge strength. But being too diligent can make you a perfectionist micromanager who trusts no one. The book is full of stories of leaders who succeeded because of a trait, and then failed when that same trait went into overdrive.

Michelle: So really, good judgment isn't just about judging others accurately. It's about having the perceptivity to judge ourselves and know when our own personality might be getting in our way. Mark: That is the ultimate takeaway. The final chapter is about making perceptivity a habit. It's about developing a deep curiosity about why people do what they do, and more importantly, why we do what we do. Self-awareness is the highest form of good judgment. Michelle: It reframes the whole idea of self-improvement. It’s not about reading a list of habits and trying to force them on yourself. It's about understanding your own psychological blueprint and then building systems or strategies to manage your built-in derailers. Mark: Exactly. And Davis’s final point is that this is a skill we build constantly, not a tool we pull out only when we need it. He encourages us to stay curious, to look up from our screens, and to play our own version of the 'Subway Game' in our daily lives. To really see the people around us. Michelle: I love that. It feels like a much more profound and human way to move through the world. What do you all think? Have you ever completely misjudged someone's character based on a first impression? Or have you ever had one of your own strengths become a 'derailer' that tripped you up? We'd love to hear your stories. Let us know. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.