BLUF

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, demonstrated EI by responding to Facebook’s attack on Apple—in a short factual tweet.

Summary

Emotional Intelligence includes the ability to recognize your emotional reaction to something. Then, when responding to criticism to—remain calm, rational and reasonable. Apple decided in the interests of privacy, to require apps—such as Facebook—to ask users for permission before tracking them online, see Apps need to ask permission. This upset Facebook, which took out extensive ads attacking Apple's decision. Apple's CEO Tim Cook could have launched an emotional attack on Facebook's denial of choice to its users. Instead, Cook responded in a 47-word tweet as follows:

'We believe users should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it's used. Facebook can continue to track users across apps and websites as before, App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 will just require that they ask for your permission first.'

What do you think we can learn from the way Apple handled Facebook's criticism?

Learn more about how EI helped Apple’s CEO respond effectively to criticism of his company

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