EQ Blog Category: Emotional Intelligence
Ah, Africa!
I’ve heard it said that you cannot visit Africa and not be affected and I knew it was true on my first visit 2 years ago, but now coming back to Lagos, Nigeria, I know it once again. I’ve spent the week working with warm, wonderful, ‘passionate’ Nigerian leaders who have such a sincere desire for change that it inspires me. I get excited thinking about the changes they will make and honoured to be part of it. I sometimes have to pinch myself. I have the honour of spending the week with these incredibly bright, insightful, dedicated people living my passion for facilitating learning in an absolutely fascinating world of wonder – and I’m almost embarrassed to say I get paid for it ;-) It never ceases to amaze me how “Leading with Emotional Intelligence” resonates as the solution to organizational effectiveness in organizations everywhere in the world that I’ve been so far. Sometimes the discussions here in Nigeria get so fired up with passionate viewpoints flying around the room that I get a little worried. (Actually, I don’t really get that worried. I’m just prone to hyperbole – I exaggerate – a lot, practically all the time ;-) Suffice it to say I never see that kind of passion in the training room in North America – or anywhere else in the world for that matter. It’s very refreshing. Stay tuned for photos I plan to post on my EITC Facebook page – or maybe somewhere else. I haven’t really decided yet.
My hosts and partners at STI Consulting, Abiodun, Keji, Olabisi, N’kechi, and Nicholas were awesome hosts – I thank you for all your warm hospitality and royal treatment. I look forward to our next opportunity to work together and courses we will offer together in Toronto, Accra, Dubai, and Johannesburg.
Now back to ‘head office’ to get ready for the next course, the Toronto EQ-i Certification Course July 14-16, immediately followed by “The Advanced Leadership Development Course” – a high level 4 day leadership course for senior executives based on the concepts of emotional intelligence in Toronto July 19-22.
Ottawa EQ-i Certification Course, May 26-28, 2010
We just wrapped the Ottawa EQ-i Certification Course and I’m sitting at the airport waiting to board my plane for the west. What wonderful people I have the privilege to work with! I continue to marvel at the talented, experienced, knowledgeable people who sign up for the EQ-i Certification Course. These participants are seasoned managers and leaders involved in leadership course design/delivery, program management, and leadership coaching all with the goal of assisting the most senior government employees in Canada to be better leaders. Most participants work for our very own Canada School of Public Service and, from what I can see, they do an incredible job of ensuring that our senior bureaucrats have the tools and resources available to be the best leaders they can be. They work with leaders all over Canada and the rest of the world in Canadian embassies and foreign offices and are equally comfortable training and coaching in either of our official languages. They work with all branches of the military, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and all government divisions and departments at many levels. In my mind they are quite amazing people and a pleasure to work with.
Despite the mind-boggling 34 degree heat (Wednesday – it cooled off slightly past two days), Ottawa was absolutely lovely – what a beautiful city! I look forward to my return.
EQ Interview Questions
So, my flight gets cancelled at the Seattle airport and a colleague asks me by email if I know of a resource that provides interview questions according to the 15 EQ Competencies of the BarOn model of EQ. No, I don’t, I say, but here, let me have a crack at it since my flight was just cancelled and I’ve got some time ;-) Let me know what you think.
- Emotional Self-Awareness: Tell me about a time when your awareness of your own emotions caused you to change your plan of action.
- Assertiveness: Tell me about a time when you spoke up knowing that by doing so you were taking a risk.
- Self-Regard: Please tell us what we can expect as a “Return” on our investment (your salary) in you.
- Independence: Tell us about a time when you took a critical action in the workplace without being directed to do so.
- Self-Actualization: Tell us about a time when you felt most fulfilled. What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment? What are you proud of?
- Empathy: You notice a co-worker choking back tears throughout a meeting. Nobody else seems to notice because of the way he/she is sitting. The meeting ends. You both get up to leave. What do you do?
- Social Responsibility: Tell us your thoughts on how you think you can “give back to others/make the world a better place/help others/ be of service” by simply carrying out the duties required by this job.
- Interpersonal Relationship: What are your thoughts about developing friendships with your coworkers?
- Problem Solving: Describe a problem you discovered in a previous job and what you did about it. Describe a problem that you solved where you are particularly proud of the solution you came up with. How did you go about solving it?
- Flexibility: Describe a situation where you had to be extremely flexible.
- Reality Testing: Are you more of a dreamer or more of a realist? Give me an example of how someone observing might know this about you.
- Stress Tolerance: Tell me how you deal with stress. What do you do to proactively deal with stress. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a lot of stress and how you handled it.
- Impulse Control: Tell me about your ability to resist the temptation to do things you may later regret. Have you ever done something you later regretted?
- Happiness: Tell me about a time in your life when you experienced a great deal of “life satisfaction.” What makes you “happy?” Define “happiiness” for me.
- Optimism: Describe your general attitude to work and life. What does “good attitude” mean to you? This glass I’m holding, how would you describe it – as half-full or half-empty and what’s the difference – is there a difference – does it matter?
There you go right off the cuff!
I hope this helps – at least you get the idea from my perspective.
What is emotional intelligence? (Video)
What is emotional intelligence? How does it relate to leadership?
Watch this video about the Emotional Intelligence Training Company, and David Cory, to learn about emotional intelligence and leadership.
Overwhelm – an Emotion?
‘Overwhelm’ – an Emotion? March 24, 2010
I’ve been reading Tara Hunt’s “The Whuffie Factor” about online social capital and I’m feeling quite overwhelmed by it all. Of course, it all makes perfect sense to me as I’ve worked very hard to develop a ‘good’ reputation for myself as an ambassador for emotional intelligence and as a person who delivers on promises, etc. I know how quickly and easily that reputation is damaged for example, when I make a mistake like coming on too strong, being late for a conference talk, or misreading my audience (yes, unfortunately these things have happened! ;-) I understand social capital and it follows that it is the same online. It’s really how people (hopefully in your target market) ‘feel’ about you and being intentional about that – how do you want people to feel about you? You get a ‘rep’ online as well as in real life. But for a baby boomer like me (tail end ;-) it’s more difficult to wrap my mind around all the technical aspects of building social capital and I feel a bit anxious about it all. There are the different social media websites that must all be updated and yes I know about programs like TweetDeck, etc., but still, you have to be on top of these things and I don’t know if I’m up for the challenge. I guess I’ll have to be. Is ‘overwhelm’ an emotion? I don’t think so. I think we use it to mean ‘anxious’, ‘fearful’, or other emotion that prevents or limits our effectiveness in the required task – in this case, the required task is to get on it and learn about all these various forms of social media and get busy writing and staying on top of it all and not let ‘overwhelm’ get in the way.
Humility
Partnerships are a beautiful thing. They are especially important for us ‘solo-preneurs’ who are often working alone. Yes, I work with others, but I don’t go to an office where I see a lot of other people every day. I commute down the hallway to my home office where I peck away at the computer until it’s time to pack the suitcase and off I go to a client site or a hotel, which is often in another city. Partnerships allow me the ‘feeling’ of working as part of a team. I first met Jim Kirkpatrick at a conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and I really liked him and his message. Later I met Jim’s partner in marriage, Wendy over the telephone and I liked her too. In the short time that we’ve worked together on offering the Kirkpatrick Business Partner Certification programs in Canada, I’ve learned a lot from Wendy and Jim about marketing courses, about partnering with others and about creating win-win arrangements for mutual benefit. I guess that’s one of the things I like about partnerships. There are always new things to learn about this crazy business of training and development and I keep running into people who are so much smarter and more experienced than me. So, what to do? Get to know them as well as possible and learn, learn, learn! However, to do that, you must stay ‘teachable’ and to do that, you must acknowledge there are things you do not know. It’s not always easy to do. It’s a fine balance between having a healthy self-regard and having humility.
EITC Update
Wow, a lot has happened since my last blog post! New website, new year, new ideas, new projects, and a new life in Calgary, Alberta. Wait, what? Why would someone move from Vancouver to Calgary? It’s not that Calgary is not a great city. It is a great city in its own right, but compared to Vancouver? As it turned out, the reason for the move to Calgary is that there was a necessary medical service required by our son here in Calgary that is not available in Vancouver. We made the move in December of last year and our son is doing well. We kept our house in Vancouver and my wife has gone back and forth between the two cities this whole time. I’m pretty much based in Calgary, for the present, with our son and we’ll see how the future unfolds. That’s the personal update.
As for the professional update, we (Klaudia, Kim, Becky, Sherwin, Ben, and me) have lots of great plans. We continue to offer the EQ-i Certification Course in many great cities and the EQ-360 Certification Course via teleclass. We are offering EQ coaching through Klaudia and Kim to our wonderful course participants in various parts of the world. Becky and Sherwin continue to offer all manner of design, communications, web, and marketing support. I like to refer to what they do as “emotionally intelligent design.” (see their website www.pinksheepmedia.com) And now Ben, the youngest Cory, has joined the team as all around administrative support. I’m still trying to convince my wife, Jill, to join the team, but she stubbornly (or is it ‘wisely’) refuses to do so. ;-)
So far, 2010 is shaping up wonderfully well with many partnerships and great clients in many parts of the world. This year work will take me to Madrid, Seattle, San Francisco, Lagos, Ottawa, Calgary, Toronto, Ghana, Johannesburg, and hopefully back to Trinidad and Beijing. More people than ever are getting their certification to use the EQ-i in advance of the release of the EQ-i 2.0, which is a very exciting new product from MHS. More on that as it becomes available.
I continue to wonder how I can better serve my clients. What types of products and services do my clients need? I’ve learned that they need products and services which can help them to make personal changes easier, better, faster, cheaper. I’ve learned that they are looking to understand the connection between EI/EQ and the bottom line better. And I’ve certainly learned that in a technical environment like the gas and oil industry in Calgary, that it’s harder to see the connection between EI/EQ and improved organizational performance – “it’s really just about the technology – isn’t it?”
I will continue to learn and I’ll continue to try to turn that learning around and pass it on to my clients. It is what gives me energy and it is my passion. Thanks for tuning in. This time, I’m going to do everything in my power to keep writing.
Cheers,
David
EQ Update Newsletter, February 10, 2009
EQ Update Newsletter, Emotional Pondering
Do you feel cared for by me? I know, it’s a strange question, but one I often ask myself when I get an e-newsletter, “does this person care about me or do they just want my money?” Obviously, you wanted something from me when you subscribed to my newsletter and obviously, I wanted you to subscribe to my newsletter. I wanted a relationship with you and you wanted information that you would find useful/helpful/’of value’ from me. It’s a difficult balance, this ‘giving you what you want and me getting what I want’ out of this newsletter business! Would I like you to come to one of my courses or hire me to do some training in your organization, thereby adding to my bank account? Honestly, yes, but I also believe that we can both benefit from a mutual relationship whether there is a financial transaction between us – or not. Am I doing my part to provide you with value? I think I’m doing a bad job, actually, as I write so infrequently and sporadically. Then I beg your forgiveness and promise to try to be more consistent. Kind of pathetic, if you ask me. I think you should feel ‘cared for’ in this relationship and I think for you to feel cared for I would provide you with timely, valuable information that you can use (for me to know more about this, I would like to hear more from you) on a more consistent basis.
So, in the spirit of the wise old Yoda, “do or do not do, there is no try” - I’ve done something about this situation. Some excellent colleagues of mine, namely, Klaudia Williams, Miriam Miller, Becky Cory, and Sherwin Arnott (www.pinksheepmedia.com) have agreed to assist me with getting this newsletter out on a more consistent basis and working on my blog as well. They have also agreed to contribute to the EQ Update to make it even more valuable.
If you put out a newsletter, think about the extent to which your subscribers feel cared for – it’s the emotionally intelligent thing to do! ;-)
What do you think? How do you feel? Write me at david@eitrainingcompany.com
Update January 20, 2009
Let’s start back at the Chicago International Conference on Emotional Intelligence June 30, July 1 as we’ve got some catching up to do.
It was a fabulous conference! I loved seeing old friends, okay, so not necessarily so old, but the real pioneers of EI/EQ development, many of whom I met at the first international conference on emotional intelligence, coincidently in Chicago, in 1999. The Key Note speakers were awesome; Jim Kouzes (of the Leadership Challenge and many other leadership books and programs, who married a former certification course participant of mine, who is now Tae Kouzes, a talented and brilliant OD consultant in her own right), Peter Salovey (co-coiner of the term “emotional intelligence”) and David Caruso (co-author of the MSCEIT) and many wonderful breakout session speakers – unfortunately I couldn’t hear all of them!
As for me, I presented on Cultural Infuences on EQ and used the Hofstede Cultural Dimensions and my own experience to highlight some considerations when using the concept of EI/EQ in other cultures. I asked people to exchange business cards with people they had not yet met. I then explained how cards are exchanged in Asia – a continent we sometimes view as lower in EQ (we also have some EQ-i data that some use to support this idea – don’t get me started). I then asked them to exchange cards again with a new person using the ‘Asian method’ of presenting with 2 hands and high regard for the content of card. They commented that the Asian method was more respectful and allowed for more time for connection – so much for Asians being less emotionally intelligent ;-)
Will you be at the 2009 Toronto Conference? Register now at www.mhs.com/icei/
Here are some of the projects I’m currently involved in that I’m excited about:
- Improving organizational effectiveness in First Nations’ (Native or Aboriginal Canadian) organizations in BC
- Ongoing work in Calgary in the petroleum industry (we now have a Calgary telephone number: 403-775-0041)
- Work with Nexen Inc., Canadian CGA Association, the City of Richmond, Abbotsford Police Department, Abbostford Community Services, Fraser Valley Health Authority, BC Provincial Government, and EI China in Beijing
