"The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Small Business Owners"

Here's an excerpt from the article "The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Small Business Owners"

Emotional intelligence helps you:
-Deal with conflicts and problem solving
-Offer better customer service
-Hire the best people for the job
-Trust your business instincts and intuition
-Listen to others, understand them, and make them feel appreciated
-Control your reactions to challenges, and stay positive when mistakes happen
-Market to your customer because you’re better able to empathize with them
-Write better, more emotionally driven, content
-Connect with potential partners and build business relationships

You can read the entire article here.

Two Powerful Questions for Leaders (or anyone seeking to leave the world a better place)

1. How do people experience you?
2. How do people experience themselves when they are with you?

From “Remember Who You Are” by Daisy Wademan

Stand Up Comedy on a Monday--Worst PPT ever!

Funny video on our worst habits using powerpoint.

The Brain favors even a bad habit. Ugh.

An April issue of Wired offers some bad news. When we make poor decisions, these behaviors can become part of the “blueprint” for future actions. Scientists are proving that our brains seek easy answers and may look only to a precedent of what we have done before and repeat that action—even if the decision was regrettable.

This is another illustration of how our brain structure favors habitual behaviors and why changing behavior can be so difficult!

For the complete article click here.

© 2009 Laura Lewis-Barr all rights reserved

What Skills Are Associated with Emotional Intelligence?

These 8 skills will make you happier, healthier, more productive. They will improve your relationships and your efficiency at work. They may take a lifetime to fully develop but all these skills CAN be learned!

Distinguishing Emotions and Thoughts
Recognizing Patterns of Behaviors
Recognizing Destructive Thought Patterns
Navigating Emotions
Discovering Motivation
Utilizing Optimistic Thinking
Developing Empathy
Discovering Meaning and Purpose

These are my descriptions of the core competencies developed by 6seconds. For more info on their EI research, visit 6seconds.com

The value of emotional data

If I’m speaking to manufacturers or other “no-nonsense” groups, I sometimes worry that my EI workshops might be too “touchy feely.” An ironic concern, yes? But my fears illustrate our culture’s discomfort with emotions. I need to remind myself and my participants that emotions provide powerful information that we can’t access in any other way. Isn’t it time to look more deeply (and take more seriously) this unknown territory in ourselves?

Here’s one more irony: companies pour over financial data and shop floor statistics. Experts try to find any small area to leverage and improve performance. But we still ignore the most important element of workplace efficiency-- employees’ relationships and communication in the workplace. How much more could performance improve if we perceived, understood, and managed the emotions that underlie our everyday thoughts and actions?
©2010Lewis-Barr

What are Your Emotional Abilities?

This “Ability Model” from researchers, Caruso, Mayer and Salovey, is a great summary and reminder of the many skills we must develop to use our emotions well. Each level illustrates the many benefits of our emotions. We can use our emotions to: access others’ states of mind, assist in decision making, understand what a situation means to us, and problem solve. How are your skills in each of these areas?

Table 1 Ability Model (Caruso, Mayer and Salovey. 2000: 57)
__________________________________________________________________________________
Level 1--Perceiving
Identify emotions in thoughts
Identify emotions in other people
Express emotions accurately
Discriminate between accurate and inaccurate feelings

Level 2 Using
Prioritize thinking by directing attention
Generate emotions to assist judgment
Mood swings to change perspective
Emotional states to encourage problem solving

Level 3 Understanding
Label and recognize relations among emotions
Interpret meanings that emotions convey
Understand complex emotions
Recognize emotional transitions

Level 4 Management
Stay Open to feelings
Engage/detach from an emotion
Monitor emotions reflectively