Category: Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional Intelligence Helps NFL Players “Win at Life”

“We’re learning that emotional intelligence is an important ingredient in helping professional athletes live healthy and successful lives”
– National Football League Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw

A study of retired NFL players and EQ compares players’ emotional intelligence with life success — including good health, positive relationships, avoiding drug/alcohol use & violence, financial strength, and quality of life.  Among the 30 athletes we studied over 60% in the variation of these important factors are predicted by emotional intelligence scores.  So there is a massive correlation between high EQ skills and life success.

This is an important study because NFL players are extremely influential as role models – and despite their incredible success in making it to the top of the  game, there are so many struggles off the field. We can now pinpoint specific, learnable skills that will make a difference for these guys – for life.  While the NFL is a very big, economically driven business, the growing interest in emotional intelligence could be a sign of commitment to the larger impact of the sport in our society.

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Rational Thinking = Better Decisions? Not.

A new study released in Applied Psychology found that people with a highly rational thinking style actually became more biased as the stakes went up.  The authors suggest that in an escalating situation, the highly analytical thinkers were less able to tune into the dissonance that would cause them to challenge their own assumptions.

In other words:  They ignored the feeling that they were on the wrong track.

The common view is that we need to be rational to make optimal decisions, but it’s just not true.  The last century has been driven by this paradigm and the results are clear – while we have incredible technical excellence, we are failing as a species.  My contention: “Analytical = Better” is one of the most pervasive and destructive myths of our era.

If wisdom is to be found, it is not within the paralyzing prison of logic alone.

Source: Kin Fai Ellick Wong, Jessica Yuk Yee Kwong, Carmen K. Ng (2008) “When Thinking Rationally Increases Biases: The Role of Rational Thinking Style in Escalation of Commitment,” Applied Psychology 57 (2) , 246–271  (Article Abstract)
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Intelligent About Emotions

After finishing the “Emotoscope” ap for Facebook I was shaking dust from my brain to come up w/ another fun way for people to learn about feelings. Said to Patty (my wife), “How about a cool online EQ jeopardy game?”

istock_000002420436xsmall.jpg“Boring” – she said it more delicately. “I mean, what would you ask?” **

Emma (8) is listening in (as usual – big ears!!) and pipes up, “jealousy?”

Right on! “What is jealousy?” I continue to Patty, “Or how about ‘ a little anger + sadness’?” Blank look from Patty, Emma again:

“disappointment?”

Whoa! Emotional literacy in action.

And not enough. Maybe being intelligent about emotions is the foundation. Then the graduate course: to be intelligent with emotions.

** in defense of Patty: her point was that this game has only “right/wrong” answers and our learning philosophy commits us to deeper forms of reflection
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Emotional intelligence for health

Intriguing study – more evidence that being smart with feelings is key to success in life. In this case – recovery from illness.

Those with low anger control produced higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which was in turn, associated with delayed healing.

Source: BBC NEWS | Health | Anger control key to recovery

While I’m not crazy about the phrase “anger control” (because “control” is the most superficial form of self-management – kind of like someone saying you should “control your wife”), the concept makes so much sense. Feelings tied to danger (ie, stress response) focus our body on short-term problems (fight the lion).

Likely one reason feelings like hope, courage, and compassion speed healing is that they reverse stress.

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Overheard: “Doing my work”

celebration@ lunch today confess to eavesdropping (funny word) on 2 young women talking about their lives and decision to make conscious choice about how they want their days to add up into a life.

“I am getting sick of just drinking every day, so I guess I gotta spend my time with different people.”

They got talking about “doing my work” and the healing they both wanted to do.  On the one hand, it sounded like an OD of Dr Phil – every self-help cliche was coming out.  On the other I wanted to go hug them and give them my card.  I thought that might give away the fact that i was eavesdropping though….

And, on the 3rd hand (is there one?) I was wondering about “doing my work.”  I love the commitment to growth.  And I wonder:  Why is it work?

I mean, I get that it is.  Usually it feels like work to change and grow… it’s a real effort to stop doing the crappy-but-gratifying stuff and be a grownup instead (sigh).  But I also feel sad that it’s “work” to learn.

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Emotional Intelligence in Redbook

I was interviewed for Feb ’07 Redbook article.  It’s always fun to see how these things come out…

Excerpt:

“See” your feelings in full color.
Take a moment each day to imagine that you’re a blank wall waiting to be painted, suggests Joshua Freedman, of Six Seconds (6seconds.org), an emotional-intelligence website. “Let your imagination run wild as you assign colors to your feelings and paint your wall,” he says. Orange could signify frustration, for example: You might find that streaks of orange appear on your canvas when you interact with a certain coworker, indicating that it’s your relationship with that person — not your job itself — that’s causing you workday angst. “Monitoring your mural will help you sense your emotions more clearly,” says Freedman. And once you know your patterns, you can brainstorm and implement solutions for dealing with people and situations in a healthy, positive way.

I recall talking about an exercise along these lines, but I think I suggested actually taking a piece of paper and dividing it into blocks, then coloring the blocks to represent your different feelings of the day.  We typically have multiple feelings, and sometimes it’s hard to sort out!  Would be a cool journal exercise – no words, just color blocks.

Try it an post a comment!

Pick up this month’s Redbook – or you can see the article online:
Are You Smart About Your Feelings?  Five ways to boost your emotional intelligence.

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Amazing “ethnography” about students

One of the most intriguing youtubes I’ve seen this year – students at Kansas State University and Mike Wesch (presumably the prof) put together this piece sharing some data about a group of 200 students. The result is a compelling “story” that traditional instruction is not going to cut it. Wearing my “EQ guy hat” I look at this as a cry for emotional intelligence — the need for educators and educational systems to get better at connecting w students at a deeper level and helping them capture not just facts, but also meaning! This reinforces Tessy’s post about multitasking (below).

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Getting to the Heart of Leadership

Press Release on my new book: PR Web – At the Heart of Leadership

Web site: At the Heart of Leadership: How to Get Results with Emotional Intelligence
— a free excerpt of the book is available for download

Here’s more of the story from Six Seconds, The Emotional Intelligence Network:

New Book Teaches How To Get to The Heart of Leadership
Tools and Articles on EQ at WorkFor over a decade the concept of “emotional intelligence” has been a buzz around the world, and while many books have defined the concept, now there is finally a book which shows leaders how to apply it.In a business climate fraught with rapid change, globalization, and an elusive pool of top talent, how do leaders forge competitive advantage? The science of emotional intelligence provides critical insights into the answer, but how do leaders put the concept in action?

Whew – exciting hyperbole or what??? Cutting through the hype… I’m really proud about the book! There’s a ton of valuable ideas as well as a lot of science made practical. Not the “best thing since sliced bread,” but I am confident that leaders interested in actually USING emotional intelligence will find this to be a useful tool.

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Workplace Coach: Don’t underestimate emotional intelligence

Seattle Post Intelligencer, 6/5/07

Couple quotes I liked:

You can’t change what you are unaware of in yourself. Being able to observe yourself in the heat of the moment is the first step to making a different choice versus your typical programmed emotional reaction.

This comment is key:

There is valuable information in emotions — if you can tune into that internal channel. Feelings can clue us in about the importance and meaning of an event, situation or interaction.

Would be nice to see more depth in what appears in popular media. “Emotions matter” is a good start though!