Introduction

Getting the Most from This Resource

PURPOSE

Emotional intelligence research and experience validate its importance as a critical factor in personal and business success. The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations provides a business case for emotional intelligence that lists success stories that resulted from developing or expanding emotional intelligence skills. They note:

“Optimism is an emotional competence that leads to increased productivity. New salesmen at Met Life who scored high on a test of ‘learned optimism’ sold 37 percent more life insurance in their first two years than did pessimists.” (www.eiconsortium.org)

The need for emotional intelligence increases with higher levels of responsibility, such as management or parenthood, and becomes even more important with groups, such as work teams. Recognizing the importance of emotional intelligence is a great starting place, but how do we develop competencies in the actual skills that empower us to function more effectively at work, at home, and in the community? The Guidelines for Best Practices for training and development in EI created by the EI Consortium emphasize the critical need for experiential practice to learn and enhance EI competencies. This book addresses that need by providing experiential learning scenarios drawn from real life to enhance emotional intelligence skills and competencies.

AUDIENCE

This book is designed for coaches, trainers, facilitators, HR professionals, managers, and anyone who wants to help others improve their emotional intelligence. The in-depth description of key elements of emotional intelligence is supported by easy, practical, and impactful exercises.

For individual coaching, the primary audiences are leaders, managers, supervisors, and employees whose job success requires improved interpersonal skills. The exercises will also be useful in clinical applications with clients who need to develop emotional intelligence to achieve therapeutic goals.

For group development, the primary audiences are management teams, intact teams at any level, and cross-functional teams. The exercises will also be an important resource for those providing public workshops for people interested in developing competencies in social and emotional intelligence, improving relationships, and expanding their career development opportunities.

ASSESSMENTS

The exercises contained in Part Three of this book may be used with or without assessments. For those who use assessments, we urge you to consider using multiple assessments whenever possible. No one measure can tell everything about a person or a team. Multiple data sets provide the opportunity to corroborate results, to better understand the feedback, and to understand the interrelationships among multiple factors. Dr. Cary Cherniss, professor, author of pivotal books on EI, and co-founder of the EI Consortium, stated in his presentation at Collaborative Growth’s EQ Symposium that many organizations are increasingly requesting the use of multiple assessment tools and finding more validity in results when they do so.

Assessments one might consider using in accompaniment with any of the four EQ measures discussed in this book include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI), Emergenetics®, FIRO-B®, the Center for Creative Leadership’s Benchmarks, the DiSC®, and the Campbell Interest and Skills Inventory. One interesting explanation of the combination of assessment benefits is found in Pearman (2009), where he discusses MBTI and emotional intelligence.

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

This book is organized into three parts. Part One, Using Emotional Intelligence to Create Real Change, explains the rationale for developing emotional intelligence (EI) and highlights four key EI measures. The first section outlines the case for emotional intelligence. It explains why EI has such a powerful impact on personal effectiveness. The next section introduces the four most significant emotional intelligence measures and presents a matrix for cross-referencing the individual exercises in this book with the specific competencies for which each measure provides instruction. If you are working with one of the four EI measures—the EQ-i2.0® or EQ360®, TESI®, the MSCEIT™, or EISA—you can look up your measure of choice in the cross-reference matrix and find the exercises that apply. These exercises will help you develop the competencies important to you for whichever measure you use.

Perhaps the best part is that you don’t have to be working with a measure at all! You can use these exercises independently to strengthen any competency that is needed. For example, if you wanted to work with a team or individual to help him or her develop flexibility, you would look in Part Two for the in-depth description of the competency and then go to Part Three, where, under the heading Flexibility, you would find four choices—Exercises 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, and 13.4. Just choose the one that is best suited to your situation.

Part Two, Exploring Emotional Intelligence and Well-Being Skills, provides an in-depth description of each of sixteen emotional skills to help you and your clients become thoroughly familiar with the dimensions of each skill.

Part Three, Emotional Intelligence Exercises to Build Effective Skills, contains exercises, all framed as experiential learning scenarios. The first three sections of each exercise—Purpose, Thumbnail, and Outcome—explain the following: Purpose answers WHY you would have the people do this exercise; Thumbnail tells you HOW participants will engage with the instructional material to generate the learning experience; and Outcome explains WHAT your target is—the desired results that can be achieved. The exercises contain reproducible handouts (also available at www.pfeiffer.com/go/Hughes/EIAction2) that you may copy for your participants.

The book closes with a list of resources for finding additional useful information.

Note to coaches and facilitators: Most of the exercises can be used in individual coaching situations as well as with intact teams and groups. The thumbnail summaries and instructions usually are written for the team and group experience. If you are coaching an individual, simply reframe the instructions for the one-on-one environment and the exercises will be effective for you and your client.

KEY TERMS

EI is an acronym for emotional intelligence.

EQ (emotional quotient) is a measure of the degree of emotional intelligence development, similar to IQ. The term was coined by Dr. Reuven Bar-On.

ICONS

We have developed a set of icons to highlight specific parts of each chapter to which you may want to give special attention. They are meant to be fun and informative landmarks that help you navigate the material efficiently and make the best use of it.

The treasure chest icon is the first one you will encounter. It appears in the in-depth description of each specific competency, where it highlights a helpful tip or insight about that skill, how to develop it, qualities that make it important, or how applying it effectively can make a difference in the quality of your life.

The star performer icon indicates a biographical note about someone in real life who is an excellent model of that specific competency. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Maya Angelo, and Meryl Streep are among the examples you will find.

There are many excellent examples of emotionally intelligent behavior in the movies, so we have done our best to utilize some of the more popular films to illustrate each of the competencies. You will find The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker, Jack Goes Boating, Precious, Lilies of the Field, Remember the Titans, and The Wizard of Oz among our favorites.

The purpose of the thumbnail is to let the coach or trainer quickly know how long he or she will need to allow for the exercise and what sort of an experience he or she will be facilitating.

The website for the book has easily downloadable copies of all handouts associated with the exercises. These can be printed out, which supports you in your preparation for using each exercise in coaching or training.

FACILITATOR COMPETENCIES

This section is designed to show the coach or trainer how skillful he or she will have to be in order to successfully conduct each exercise. There is generally also a significant relationship with how sophisticated the learning experience will be for the participants. If participants’ skills tend to be less developed in an area, then starting with an easier exercise will provide better results.

Three levels of facilitator skills are identified as:

EASY

MODERATE

ADVANCED

FACILITATOR GUIDELINES

Preparation

• Review this section, “Introduction: Getting the Most from This Resource,” section to familiarize yourself with the icons used in this book.
• Review the appropriate section in “Part Two—Exploring Emotional Intelligence and Well-Being Skills” to better understand the emotional intelligence aspect on which you will be working.
• Read applicable material from the Resources list and the References at the back of the book if you are seeking supplemental information.
• Ensure the room size and table arrangements are conducive to the type of exercise you will be leading.
• Make sufficient copies of the reproducible participant handouts that are included in the exercises (and available on the website) and gather other needed materials.
• Consider playing music during the reflective phases of the exercises when participants are asked to think about their behaviors and responses. We recommend calming instrumental music that is played at a soft volume. (If you do use music, be sure to abide by any copyright restrictions.)

Materials

• The “Materials” section of each exercise contains a list of materials you will need.
• Reproducible participant handouts are included in most exercises.
• Full-size printable versions of the handouts are available at www.pfeiffer.com/go/Hughes/EIAction2.

Debriefing and Reflection

• Debriefing is one of the most important phases of each exercise. It gives participants a chance to reflect on and synthesize their experiences and to share what they have learned. It provides one of the best opportunities for introverts to be heard.
• Ask questions that help the participants uncover what they learned and surface any “a-ha’s.” Your mission is to lead them on a journey of self-discovery. The learning is more powerful when they recognize for themselves how they benefited from the exercise, versus having you tell them what they learned.

Selection

• Refer to the cross-reference matrix in Chapter 2 of this book to identify the exercise(s) you want to use.
• Look up the potential exercises you identified from the cross-reference matrix, and refer to the purpose, thumbnail, outcome, audience, estimated time, and facilitator competency information to help you identify the best exercise(s) for your situation.