We are excited by the discovery of Applied Emotional Intelligence. There is Emotional Intelligence (EI) as described by Daniel Goleman and there is Applied Emotional Intelligence which seems much more practical and pragmatic. From coaching and Leadership Development work I was looking for a way to make the ‘soft’ side of leadership accessible to people.

For some time now I have felt there was something missing in work with leaders on organisational change… If a change methodology could be co-created and they could see what we would need to do, then I could explain to them that how they behaved was important to whether or not the change would be successful, but there didn't seem to be a consistent model to share with them around ensuring the right behaviours. So, it was with a big ‘Ah-hah!’ that I read about Applied EI and realised that it could provide a consistent model/tool. For we know that Leadership can be taught and this tool seems to have great potential for us in the development of leaders.

Tim Sparrow and Amanda Knight, in their book Applied Emotional Intelligence, have divided the concept of emotional intelligence into two parts: What they call Intrapersonal intelligence (self) and what they call Interpersonal intelligence (others).

Figure one:

It makes perfect sense: I can’t manage myself until I know myself well. And only after I know myself well, will I be able to be aware of and learn to know others. This knowledge then helps me to manage the relationship so that I can achieve my/our objectives. Being effective in all four areas leads to effective overall performance.

Our thinking and feeling together give us what we do, so it is vital to understand the feeling aspects of our attitudes, even if 'feeling' is seen by many in business as a 'dirty word'. Emotional intelligence integrates feeling, thinking and doing. All of us have the capacity to behave with emotional intelligence however most of us have interferences (beliefs, attitudes and habits) which stop us. In other words Performance = potential – interference (based on Timothy Gallwey’s work).

The interesting part comes when we can prove that improving emotional intelligence improves business performance. Just thinking that it sounds good isn’t enough and we can point to research done by Dr. Ben Palmer of Genos Pty Ltd in Australia and Sue Jennings of Qantas Airways with sales reps from a pharmaceuticals company. This showed that the development group (who received training via workshops and coaching in EI over a period of seven months) out performed the control group by 12% on average in their sales! They have also done research to prove that sales reps with higher emotional intelligence out perform their colleagues who have a lower score. To find out more you can see the article in Organisations & People, the AMED Quarterly Journal. The May issue (Volume 14, Number 2) is a special themed issue on Emotional Intelligence.

Tricia has agreed to be a member of the CAEI (Centre for Applied Emotional Intelligence) committee, so will be keeping a finger on the Applied EI pulse.

If you’re interested to find out more:

Centre for Applied Emotional Intelligence
Book review, Applied EI
Book review, The Book of You & Me

Built to Change: How to Achieve Sustained Organizational Effectiveness

By Edward Lawler III and Christopher G. Worley

Most organisations are designed for stability and not for change. So when they try to implement change, more often than not it fails. For sustainable competitive advantage Lawler and Worley say that the ability to change is an organisation’s best bet.

At the centre of the B2Change model is an organisation’s identity – “a relatively stable set of core values, behaviours and beliefs.” Around that are three areas, Strategising, Designing and Creating Value. This all takes place in the context of differing environmental scenarios. B2Change organisations know that no one can predict the future; in fact the way businesses used to do this (extrapolating from the past) is a recipe for disaster. Therefore, savvy companies spend the time, effort and energy to think about different possibilities and how they might respond to them. For more click here

The Starfish and the Spider: the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations.

By Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom

Organisational behaviour is an intense interest of mine, so a book like this that talks about how organisations really behave and who we can help them to be more profitable is one for my reading list.  This is a book about decentralised organisations and more particularly about "starfish" organisations - those like neural networks.

The authors suggest a model for successful starfish organisations and illustrate these with stories about organisations, both past and present.  The origin of the title is that if you cut the head off a spider (a metaphor for a conventional organisation with its CEO being the spider's head) the spider will die, but if you cut an arm off a starfish (a metaphor for a neural networked organisation) these animals will grow a new arm.  For more click here

Some Quick Tips on using your PC

When you’re busy using the keyboard, it is annoying to have to take your hand away in order to use the mouse to format the text. What you need is a shortcut key, here are some we find useful:

To do this	Press
Make letters bold.	CTRL+B
Make letters italic.	CTRL+I
Make letters underline.	CTRL+U
Decrease font size.	CTRL+SHIFT+<
Increase font size.	CTRL+SHIFT+>
Remove paragraph or character formatting.	CTRL+SPACEBAR
Copy the selected text or object.	CTRL+C
Cut the selected text or object.	CTRL+X
Paste text or an object.	CTRL+V
Undo the last action.	CTRL+Z
Redo the last action.	CTRL+Y
Insert copyright symbol	ALT+CTRL+C
Insert registered trademark symbol	ALT+CTRL+R
Insert trademark symbol	ALT+CTRL+T

For other ideas around IT, databases and web applications, contact Nic Pulford at LASA Data Solutions.

• Centre for Applied Emotional Intelligence: www.emotionalintelligence.co.uk
• JCA Occupational Psychologists: www.jca.biz
• AMED (Association for Management Education and Development): www.amed.org.uk

• Tricia has been appointed to work with Henley Management College as visiting faculty. She works with the new MSc in Advanced HR as well as with special interest groups in Henley’s centres of excellence.
• Nic is now sponsoring and hosting the Centre for Applied Emotional Intelligence’s monthly ezine.
• Tricia has been asked to join the CIPD’s OD faculty. Within their programme around OD she is running sessions on Scenario planning.

Thanks to members of Solutions Focus listserve for these quotes

All of the facts belong only to the problem, not to its solution.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
-Albert Einstein

It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.
- Malcolm S Forbes 1919-1990

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
- Voltaire

To solve the problems of today, we must focus on tomorrow.
- Erik Nupponen

If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
- Albert Einstein

Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast
- Lewis Carrol

All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.
- George Bernard Shaw;

We like to laugh at ourselves too - so we wanted to share the the following from children's tests with you - however little of the Bible you may know we hope you'll find them as funny as we do!  Note that the spelling mistakes are as written, not our spellchecker gone mad!

Kids were asked questions about the old and new testaments. The following statements about the Bible were written by children. They have not been retouched nor corrected.

1. In the first book of the bible, Guinessis, God got tired of creating the world so he took the sabbath off.
2. Adam and Eve were created from an Apple tree. Noah's wife was called Joan of Ark. Noah built an ark and the animals came on in pears.
3. Lots wife was a pillar of salt during the day, but a ball of fire during the night.
4. The Jews were a proud people and throughout history they had trouble with unsympathetic Genitals.
5. Sampson was a strongman who let himself be led astray by a Jezebel like Delilah.
6. Samson slayed the Philistines with the axe of the Apostles.
7. Moses led the Jews to the Red sea where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients.
8. The Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert, Afterwards, Moses went up to Mount Cyanide to get the ten ammendments.
9. The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.
10. The seventh Commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.
11. Moses died before he ever reached Canada. Then Joshua led the Hebrews in the battle of Geritol.
12. The greates miricle in the bible is when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him.
13. David was a Hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. He fought the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in bibical times.
14. Solomon, one of Davids sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines.
15. When Mary heard she was the mother of Jesus, she sang the Magna Carta.
16. When the three wise guys from the east side arrived, they found Jesus in the manager.
17. Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption,
18. St. John the blacksmith dumped water on his head.
19. Jesus enunciated the Golden Rule, which says to do unto others before they do one to you.
20. It was a miricle when Jesus rose from the dead and managed to get the tombstone off the entrance.
21. The people who followed the lord were called the 12 decibels.
22. The epistels were the wives of the apostals.
23. One of the oppossums was St. Matthew who was also a taximan.
24. St. Paul cavorted to Christianity, he preached holy acrimony, which is another name for marraige.
25. Christians have only one spouse. This is called monotony.

 

If this interests you, there are other interesting resources on the LASA Development website so why not take a look by going to www.lasadev.com

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