is one of the world's most recognized experts on topics

relating to emotion intelligence.

He is also an amazing author.

He has written more than ten books, and his book \"Emotional

Intelligence,\" that one book alone,

sold more than 5 million copies.

He has received many awards, and he

has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer prize.

On a personal level, Dan is also the person most responsible

for me becoming an author.

So back in 2007, Dan and I, with a bunch

of distinguished friends, co-created something

called \"Search Inside Yourself,\" which is

became a very popular curriculum in Google and beyond.

And I remember in 2009, Dan and I

were taking a walk right there.

I remember the exact place and exact time.

We were taking a walk where I was

trying to convince him to write a book on \"Search

Inside Yourself.\"

And what he told me was, he said, I'd love to do it.

I just don't have the time.

And then he looked at me, he pointed his finger at me,

and said, Meng, why don't you write the book?

I was like, me?

I'm an engineer, not a doctor.

Dammit, Jim.

Eventually, because of Dan's support and his confidence

in me, I did end up writing a book.

So thank you so much, Danny.

I'm really excited about Dan's new book,

\"Focus-- the Hidden Driver of Excellence.\"

Skillfulness over attention is the foundation

of all higher cognitive and emotional abilities.

Attention creates the conditions for personal excellence.

Attention is so important that in \"Search Inside Yourself,\"

it is the first thing we train.

The first thing we train is attention.

Yet I think the subject of attention

itself is not getting enough attention, ironically.

And I cannot think of anybody better to write a book

on an important topic as Dan.

So my dear friends-- my dear friend, Danny,

I'm delighted that you wrote this book.

And I'm delighted that you didn't

ask me to write the book.

My friends, please welcome my friend,

and Google's friend, Dan Goleman.

DANIEL GOLEMAN: Thank you.

That's sweet.

I'm always happy to come to Google.

2007, that reminded me of something.

In 2007, there was a short squib in \"Time\" magazine.

And it said, there's a new word in the English language.

The word is \"pizzled.\"

It's a combination of \"puzzled\" and \"pissed off.\"

And it describes how you feel when the person you're with

takes out their BlackBerry and starts talking to someone else.

Think about that.

Both things have died.

That word and BlackBerry too.

Things change quickly.

That says something.

I remember when I went around to publishers and said,

I'd like to write a book about attention.

One of them said, that's great.

Keep it short.

Because I think attention is a capacity-- a vital capacity,

as Meng was hinting-- that's really under siege today.

I'm most worried about our kids, actually,

but I think we all are kind of victims.

Here's something rather provocative.

Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize winner,

said, \"What information consumes is

the attention of its recipients.

Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty

of attention\"-- to the extent that you understand

that there are two kinds of attention.

There's the attention that we voluntarily direct,

and there's the attention that seduces us.

There are actually different systems in the brain.

One is a top down system from the prefrontal area.

This is when we decide to concentrate on our work.

We're applying that kind of attention.

But then there are the little seduction--

the endless seductions.

And there are more and more and more of them.

I get-- I'm writing away on my book and I get a little pop-up,

you've got an email.

That's a seduction.

That's an intrusion in sustained focus.

And because of the excellence of our technology

and the cleverness of people who design technology--

some of whom are right in this room,

I just realized-- our attention needs

to be paid more attention to if we're going to maintain or even

increase our capacity for it.

This also-- the fact that attention is threatened,

along with the fact that there-- in the last two or three years,

there's been an explosion of neuroscience findings

about the attentional circuitry, which

has vast implications for us.

This has really, since I'm a science journalist,

enticed me to write the book that Meng refused to write,

perhaps luckily, now that I think about it.

And as I got into it, I realized I

had to rethink emotional intelligence.

You didn't mention that \"Harvard Business Review\" art--

yeah, the next issue of \"Harvard Business Review,\" which

will be out next week, has a cover article by me

on the leader's focus, the kind of focus,

intentional capacities, that anyone who's a leader needs.

And we're actually all leaders.

I think of leaders as anyone with a sphere of influence--

not people on the chart, necessarily.

But to the extent that we all need

to get more control over our attention,

and it makes us good at the things that

matter in performance these days,

it's led me to revise emotional intelligence,

or my thinking about it.

And I'll share that with you.

There's an effect called-- in statistics, many of you

are probably familiar with it-- the floor effect.

It occurs at a place like Google.

It occurs at an Ivy League college.

It occurs anywhere, for example, that there's

a premium put for admission on IQ.

And it's an interesting phenomenon,

because it's rather paradoxical.

What it means is that IQ, which is a fantastic predictor

of the level of cognitive complexity that you can manage,

and that you can understand-- and therefore sorts

people into job roles and so on-- abilities.

Once you get selected for IQ, then excellence

becomes defined largely by things other than IQ.

And it's because of the floor effect.

And are you all familiar with the floor effect?

OK.

So a little statistic-- so if you were to plot, say--

how's this going to be?-- IQ and emotional intelligence

into a scatter plot, you get a fairly random distribution,

because those are largely independent aspects of ability,

and they partake of different parts of the brain, largely.

So you have this pool of people.

And if this is the IQ axis, and you select the 99th percentile,

and this is the emotional intelligence access,

there's much less range of variation for IQ

than there is for emotional intelligence.

And the way this manifests in the organizational world more

generally is that if you look at what's called

a competence model-- does anyone know

what a competence model is?

Another term I should explain.

So when I was a graduate student,

my professor at Harvard, David McClellan, wrote an article.

It was very controversial.

He said, if you want to hire the best

person for a job, any job in any organization,

don't look at their IQ.

Don't look at their GPA.

Don't look at their personality profile.

Look at people in your own organization who

hold the role you're hiring for.

Identify the top 10% by whatever metric makes

sense for that job, compare them systematically

to people who are only average in that role,

and determine the competencies or ability

set that you find in the stars that you

don't find in the average.

That's now called competence modeling.

And it's done by world class organizations,

pretty much worldwide.