Recently...

• I told Emma (8-year-old daughter) she needed to get dressed to go. Instant protest, heel-dragging, power struggle. Yet we were going to do something she wanted!
  
  
• I observed a new cross-functional team starting up. The person assigned to schedule the first meeting asserted, "Since no one else wants to, I will chair the team." People rolled eyes and crossed arms (mostly hidden!). Yet she was right -- no one else wanted to chair.
  
  
• I was presenting at company and I told participants to discuss their ideas from a worksheet with the person sitting next to them. A few evaluation forms were quite negative, some said that I was "making them share to much." Yet they all said they wanted to get closer as a team.

What's the common thread?

Six Seconds' COO, Joshua Freedman, appeared on NBC's Today Show to discuss how emotional intelligence helps relationships (clip below).  The segment's focus is "keeping emotions in check," which Freedman says is just the start.

"People often ask how to 'control' emotions, which illustrates a critical issue in our thinking about feelings," Freedman says this paradigm leads people to a perpetual stuggle with themselves. "Instead, if we start valuing feelings as a wonderous source of insight and energy (rather than something nasty to control in a cage), we can have a healthy relationship with our own feelings."  This is a starting point, Freedman contents, to a  profound level of self-mastery. 

Then rather than fighting for superficial "control" of something distracting or overwhelming, emotions become invaluable allies.  For more on this topic, see Freedman's article "Fight or Flow."  Then take the SEI assessment for a benchmark of how you are using these key competencies.

Choose to Change: Emotional Intelligence in Action

Oct 3-4, San Jose CA - Six Seconds' Peer:Peer Conference

Choose to Change is a "peer-to-peer" conference where "real people" dialogue to share what’s working in emotional intelligence implementation programs in business, education, and community. Presentations will come from leaders together with practitioners sharing a "case history" of their experience and results with EQ.

Get details on the conference and call for presentations.

Researchers found that healthcare professional high in emotional intelligence are far more effective in a number of key performance areas including stress management, showing that these skills are critical for healthcare professionals – and especially those in leadership positions. 

How do you really feel?  And what does it mean?

Our new "emotoscope" helps you scope out and understand your feelings.  Why?  One of the first competencies of emotional intelligence is emotional literacy:  the ability to identify and understand feelings.  This opens the doorway to using them intelligently.

The Emotoscope is completely free @ 6seconds.org/feel - and even cooler on Facebook where you can post your feelings and share them w friends - check it out!

AND - if you like this - be sure to see the eMotion cards in the EQStore - using the same fabulous faces.

New article on emotional intelligence features discussion with Six Seconds' COO, Joshua Freedman, sharing how and why EQ is key for businesses.   Emotional Notions - Emotional intelligence is becoming a part of many organizations’ core competencies for high performers.

"A decade ago any talk of emotional intelligence would draw strange looks. Now many organizations include it among core competencies required for high performers."

Go to our Press Room for an excerpt or to download the article.

Urban Dreams: Stories of Hope, Resilience and Character is a compelling collection of essays written by students in an urban community in New Jersey. The essays are the encapsulated life stories of their authors, writers from urban elementary, middle, and high schools who were given a chance to reflect on their own lives and articulate their Laws of Life: strong values and principles that guide them in everyday decision and actions.  Here is one of the essays.

Forgiveness Overpowers Hate

Is it really an intelligence? How do we know, and what is an intelligence anyway?

Touted as the key to educational and corporate success, is EQ really just another “flavor of the month”?

There are half a million web pages on “emotional intelligence,” and everyone wants to claim the “right” definition -- so how many definitions do we need?

While you could read all 486,000 web pages, EQ Today asked the world’s top experts and researchers to explain emotional intelligence. The conclusion: There is an intelligence based on emotion, and people who have this capacity are less depressed, healthier, more employable, stronger leaders, better decision-makers, and have better relationships.

Want to stay up-to-date and connected with EQ thought leaders?  Our new blog is on www.6seconds.org/blog

Subscribe to the blog via RSS - http://www.6seconds.org/blog/?feed=rss2
(or if that makes no sense to you - just visit often! )

Check out the January issue of O Magazine - The New & Improved Self-Esteem (p 162)

"The value of self-mastery skills is already taking hold in the workplace, with organizations ranging from American Express to the United States Marine Corps integrating SEL into their leadership training... One of the exercises is called Sneetch Marbles..." (p 218).

Learn more about "Sneetch Marbles, Inc" -- or for more info about EQ training from Six Seconds click one of the buttons on our home page

A survey of 135 employees and leaders identifies the most critical challenges facing organizations today are 70% about people -- finding the right ones, getting them doing the right work, and setting the right conditions for performance.  Respondents point out that this is especially difficult given certain key business trends.

The study identifies top issues, the importance of leadership, and the ways leaders describe their challenges.  Then it goes on to explore how feelings and emotional intelligence play into organizational success:  89% of respondents identify EQ as highly important or essential to meeting their organization’s top challenges
 

The 2008 Handle With Care EQ Activity Calendar is available from the EQ Store.  

A wonderful holiday & New Year's gift, the calendar provides activities and resources to learn about 12 important emotional-intelligence-related themes.  Plus there is are postcards for sharing and stickers for celebrating!

Also - be sure to check out other fab holiday gifts in the EQ Store - such as eMotion cards, biodots, or the wonderful Journey to Wild Divine!

Feeling "cared for" is one of the most important motivators of performance.  So take a 10 second survey:  How much does your workplace care about you?

Why should schools and educational organizations be concerned with social-emotional learning?  This e-book reviews dozens of research studies showing that emotional intelligence improves academic success, school retention, healthy decision-making, and other positive benefits for students - and educators.  The Executive Summary and Introduction are presented online, and the full e-book is available for download (for free).

Even though it's billed as "The World's Shortest Parade"(under 1/4 mile) the Aptos 4th of July parade takes over two hours because of the myriad marchers -- from the Ukulele crew to the giant pigeon to the few remaining World War veterans.  This year's parade had an accidental entry, a picture I can't get out of my head.

So I'm sitting here feeling kind of grouchy - 3 weeks after emergency knee surgery, a bit painful, not able to move much, feeling sorry for myself... and slogging through email.  Cheryl Bakke Martin, one of the EQ coaches in the network, sent me a video which suprised me.

The Digital Value Sorter ( www.6seconds.org/eqsurvey2 ) helps people identify their values and reflect on how their daily choices align with their core values.

In our EQ programs we're increasingly using coaching as a method to help turn learning into action. This month's article from Mimi Frenette, our Master Coach, illustrates the principle "Emotions drive people, people drive performance."

This excerpt from At the Heart of Leadership: How to Get Results with Emotional Intelligence introduces the Six Seconds EQ Model.

The Six Seconds Model of EQ-in-Action begins with three important pursuits. To put emotional intelligence in action, you work to become more aware (noticing what you do), more intentional (doing what you mean), and more purposeful (doing it for a reason). We call the three steps: "Know Yourself," "Choose Yourself," and "Give Yourself."

When I was very small -- probably about seven -- I read a fairy tale about a princess who was born with a glass heart. In the story, this princess grew into a lovely young woman. Early one day, feeling joy at the sight of the first crocuses or daffodils or tulips in the palace garden below, she learned too far out over a window sill. The pressure on her fragile heart proved too much. There was a tiny sound -- like glass breaking -- and she fell as if dead.

Emma, Max, Patty and I were coming near the end of our family vacation in Montreal and there was some, shall we say, fussy behavior. So we began to talk about beginnings, middles, and endings and I've been thinking more about these phases and the feelings that go with them.

Awareness of beginnings, middles, and ends helps me in many other areas; it applies to all kinds of projects, relationships, and events -- at work, at school, at home, in love and in war. It seems that if we could become more effective in all three phases life would be a lot better!

Emotions serve to focus our attention on aspects of the world that help us thrive. They provide information about our interior world and about our relationships. For this survival function to operate optimally, we are highly sensitive to emotional signals in the environment. One person's emotions are affected by others'. This effect is called “Emotional Contagion” and provides important insight into why we must and how to manage emotions for optimal results.

When these accusations have come my way, it stressed the relationship and distressed me. Reflecting on these confrontations I wonder, “Why didn't I remember that discussion - why does this person feel like I don't care?”

By Joshua Freedman

When the stakes are high, life and death for the people or the company, change will happen - right? Fast Company senior writer Alan Deutschman was surprised that the answer is “no.” He was attending a conference on the future of healthcare where the dean of Johns Hopkins talked about what happens to cardiac patients when they're told to “change or die.” The incident led to an in-depth analysis of individual and organizational change with a startling conclusion: While change is possible, the usual approach doesn't work.

While popular opinion has held out that where IQ is fixed, emotional intelligence - the capacity to use emotions effectively - can be developed. A new study shows that a highly effective 2-day training can increase scores even in a highly technical workplace. Since emotional intelligence (EQ) is such an important factor in performance the study offers important value for human capital stategy and workforce planning.