Emotional Intelligence Training is About Resource Management

Your managers and employees are your human resources, but sometimes their emotional reactions reduce their ability to be resourceful. A low emotional intelligence EQ causes the individual to see very limited options when emotions are triggered. They tend to say and do things that break down relationships and teamwork. They often find themselves working around or against people rather than with them.

A Framework for Emotional Intelligence The four primary components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Our training and coaching programs focus on skill development in each of these four areas. Through these foundational skill sets, we help workshop participants and coaching clients to build a framework for understanding and taking ownership of their emotions, thoughts and behavior. Self-Awareness Neurologists tell us that our brains reconstruct the world into a virtual reality environment, and it is in this subjective world that we live. But the map is not the territory. Most people are not aware of how they come across to others, especially when they are charged with emotion. And most of us are not aware of how our emotions can distort our perception, which affects our thinking, judgement and behavior. Self-awareness is a skill. It's about learning to step back and see ourselves objectively. It's about allowing emotions to be an alarm clock so that when emotions arise, awareness asks the question, "what is happening to me right now?" Self-awareness is about deternining what is the desired outcome and formulating a strategy for making it happen. Without self-awareness, strong emotions can produce low-EQ thought patterns which lead to self-defeating behaviors. Self-Management Self-management is breaking patterns. Self-awareness sees the effects of emotion in real time, and reframes the situation in order to set the stage for the best possible outcome. Self-management is about slowing down, saying "no" to the old low-EQ behaviors, and taking action. If the old pattern is to leave the room when you get upset, or to verbally attack the other person, or to get defensive, self-awareness recognizes the pattern, and self-management breaks it by taking a new course of action, focused on bringing about a new desired outcome. Social Awareness Low-EQ people tend to personalize every emotional situation they encounter. Social awareness can help you to realize that sometimes the situation is not about you. Leadership is the ability to guide someone out of a difficult situation - but you can't be a leader when your emotions keep you feeling angry, defensive and under attack. Social awareness is the ability to feel empathy and to understand where the other person is coming from. It gives you the ability to say the right thing to lead the conversation toward the desired result. Relationship Management How you handle each difficult situation does not only affect that situation - it affects your relationships with the people involved, as well. Relationship management is a skill set that is based in the understanding that relationship outcomes are usually more important than situation outcomes. People with low EQ continually damage their relationships because their behavior is reaction-driven, and they fail to take into account the possible results of their behaviors, especially in the area of relationships. Improving Your EQ Participating in an emotional intelligence workshop doesn't guarantee that you will automatically raise your EQ, but it's a start. Our workshops provide the framework and the tools to get every member of your team on the road toward a higher EQ.

In our emotional intelligence workshops we teach participants to be more effective resource managers when they find themselves in difficult emotional situations. Instead of resisting people, we offer tools to help them facilitate cooperation and collaboration. Instead of locking into unresourceful patterns, we offer methods to help them discover new resources for improving productivity and teamwork.

Our emotional intelligence workshops are not "touchy-feely" theory seminars. They are practical workshops that focus on taking ownership of your emotions, thoughts and behaviors, and becoming a highly-productive resource manager who can work effectively in the most difficult situations, with the most difficult people.

Schedule an EQ Improvement Workshop for Your Team

If you would like to improve productivity and teamwork by improving your team's collective EQ, contact us to schedule an emotional intelligence workshop. We will email more information to you about our training and coaching programs along with our fees and references. We generally recommend a full-day workshop, but we also offer half-day workshops as well as presentations for conferences and luncheon/dinner meetings. If you are interested in a longer program, we offer full-week workshop,s or programs that can be scheduled in one-day sessions over a period of time.

After you receive our email with workshop and coaching information and fees, our next step is to schedule a phone call with Roger Reece. Roger will ask you questions about your team, your business and your work environment, and any specific interpersonal challenges and situations occurring between managers and employees that may need to be addressed through the training. Roger will explain the options we offer in terms of workshop length, format, activities and training modules, and once you have agreed on the options, he will send you a detailed outline and agenda for the workshop. You will have the option of fine-tuning the outline, and once it is approved we will schedule a date. We can generally schedule your workshop within 60 days of your initial inquiry.

DISC Behavioral-Style Assessments

In order to break old patterns, it's helpful to understand those patterns. We highly recommend including DISC assessments as an integral part of your emotional intelligence workshop. Each participant completes an online survey one week prior to the workshop and receives a 20-page personal profile outlining her/his behavioral style. These assessments are an effective tool for helping every member of your team understand their behavioral patterns. In the workshop, Roger Reece explains the DISC model and offers it as a tool for learning how to work effectively with people of different styles.

For more information about the DISC Behavioral Style Model and the DISC assessments we use, please visit our DISC Training Workshops website.

Emotional Intelligence Workshops for Large & Small Groups

We have conducted workshops with as many as 1500 participants and with as few as one participant (emotional intelligence coaching workshops). The smaller the group, the more personalized attention each participant will receive. If you have a large group, we can repeat the same workshop or multiple small groups, or we can do the first half of the workshop for everyone as a large group, and then do the second half in smaller groups scheduled later in the week. Contact us and we will work out the perfect structure for your team.

Elements of a Successful Training Workshop

Your emotional intelligence workshop can be integrated into a conference, retreat, annual meeting, company function... or it can be a stand-alone training event. We can structure the format to meet your objectives, including any or all of the following ingredients:

• Interactive Training:
  Roger Reece's training style is fast-paced, practical and highly interactive. Participants are encouraged to ask questions and share personal experiences. Roger is an excellent facilitator, drawing from the skills and insights of the members of the group while avoiding getting bogged down or sidetracked by extraneous issues.
• Small Group Discussions:
  Generally in modules of 10-15 minutes in length, participants are divided into small groups and are given a specific topic to discuss with key objectives. These modules allow everyone to share experiences and ideas related to the current topic, based on specific guidelines. After the exercise, Roger facilitates a discussion during which groups share their conclusions and insights.
• Small Group Discovery Exercises:
  These exercises often include simulations, and are designed to help each group to discover principles, untested assumptions, attitudes and behavioral insights. Participants are immersed in challenging and ambiguous situations that often envoke strong emotional responses. During the debrief that follows the exercise, Roger draws deep insights out of the participants and relates these insights to everyday work situations.
• Problem-Solving Exercises:
  Groups are given a complex problem to solve requiring creative thinking, analytical skills and teamwork. Each exercise is focused on a key learning point.
• One-On-One Dyads:
  Each participant is paired with a partner, and together they engage in dialog focused on key issues. Dyads often involve exploration of personal experiences relating to the training topic.
  
• Role-Play:
  Generally role-play exercises are conducted in groups of three: two role-players and an observer. Roger sets the stage by describing the role-play situation and the events leading up to the dialog. Each role-player is then given a briefing sheet describing additional details from the role-player's point of view. Information in the briefing sheets is very subjective, describing attitudes, emotions and polarized positions. The observer receives a copy of each role-player's briefing sheet. Role-players engage in dialog in order to realistically resolve the conflict or respond to the situation. Afterwards, the observer shares her/his insights and observations. Then Roger facilitates an open discussion, focused on learning from the results of the role plays. Some role-play sessions are conducted with volunteers who do their role-play in front of the room while the entire group observes.
  
• Experiential Learning Activities:
  These activities involve small groups and are of longer duration than the exercises described above (generally 45-90 minutes). The activities are fun and challenging, and are followed by a debrief and discussion, resulting in a deep and memorable learning experience.
  
• Team Activities:
  These activities (generally 45-90 minutes in duration) are lively and energetic, involving heated competition between groups. Often structured like games, they focus on teamwork, creativity and performance under pressure. The debrief & discussion following the activity brings the focus to key learning points.
• Motivational Humor & Entertainment:
  Roger Reece and his alter-ego, Buford P. Fuddwhacker, are a motivational speaker team. If you want to add over-the-top humor with hilarious audience participation, include a couple of 20-minute high-energy Fuddwhacker segments to your workshop. Buford is the ultimate parody on motivational speakers with down-home country humor and loads of laughter. For more information, please visit our Fun Motivational Keynote Speaker website.
  

Contact us for more ideas on how we can structure the right workshop format for your group.

Coaching & Follow-Up After the Workshop

With every emotional intelligence coaching workshop we provide a customized workbook for each participant. The workbook includes key slides and exercises that will be done during the workshop. Additionally, the workbooks include tools for applying the principles and techniques covered during the training, as well as self-study exercises for personal development. Managers can use these tools to develop their own follow-up meetings to keep the training alive and fresh.

We also provide telephone and onsite coaching programs for managers, supervisors and key employees. You can find more information about our coaching programs on the coaching page of this website.

The Objective: Behavioral Change

The purpose of our emotional intelligence workshops is to serve as an effective catalyst for behavioral change. Roger Reece's training style, the exercises and activities we use, and the tools we provide are all designed to get your managers and employees to begin practicing the skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. We believe that training that results only in the assimilation of new information has little or no value. Our workshops result in lasting behavioral change and, ultimately, increased productivity and teamwork.

Your organization may do an excellent job in providing job and technical skills-training for your employees, supervisors and managers. But if you aren't providing an equal amount of people-skills training, your training mix needs to be revamped. People skills are at the heart of productivity and teamwork. Many of the interpersonal problems that diminish teamwork can be solved or avoided through an effective people-skills training program. Our emotional intelligence workshops are the perfect solution. Contact us today to find out how we can make a difference in your organization.