All 1 entries tagged Daniel

Managing with Emotional Intelligence

Over the last couple of days I’ve attended an excellent course on ‘Managing with Emotional Intelligence’.

The course took place at HRI Wellsbourne and was run by Bob Thomson of Warwick’s Centre for Academic Practice Shirley Crookes, of the The University of Warwick’s Counselling Service.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Well, this Wikipedia article explains it better than I can. You’ll see that it is a controversial theory that doesn’t have much scientific validity.

Apparently it doesn’t (I’m no expert).

Whatever…

Whether the theory is valid or not, what I found really useful over the last couple of days was the opportunity to think about how emotions affect the way I and my colleagues worked.

During the course, we covered a lot of ground. We discussed in great deal the idea of positive or negative ‘self-talk’. Or, in other words, the language that you use with ‘yourself’ (whatever that is) as you go about the world.

In Emotional Intelligence, the idea is that, with lots of practice, you can learn to monitor your self-talk. Your aim is to become ever more aware of your perceptions and how they affect how you feel and act.

Once you’re able to do this, you can start to choose how to feel. You can choose to think, feel and act in positive rather than negative ways.

Emotional Intelligence is not for the faint-hearted

By this I mean that learning to become more emotionally intelligent takes time. It takes effort. And it takes commitment.

However, it was clear after this course, that the prize – an emotionally intelligent and calmer self – would be well worth the price. And the wait.

Thanks again Bob and Shirly for an excellent and thought-provoking couple of days.

: 12 Dec 2007 12:42 |  Tags: Daniel Emotional Goleman Intelligence Managing |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem