Friday was an interesting day for me at work …… a day in training !
Now, you would ask how could a full day training be interesting? Yes, it was interesting because the training was on “Emotional Intelligence at work place” and the topic itself was very engaging. It was all about taking a day off to know yourself, know how to deal with others, use your strengths to deal with emotions of yourself as well as others and build effective relationships.
The training involved a lecture from the trainer (details at the bottom) over the “emotional intelligence” of oneself, how to identify the various emotions you are going through and how to deal with its state. It also involved a quick self-evaluation using a question – answer technique.
As usual, I would like to put in here, on my blog, the gist of the training and what I learnt during the training.
So, to start with, do you know what is an “Emotion”? It seems so simple, but when asked this question during the training, probably none could give an exact answer. The answers were such as, ‘An emotion is a feeling.’ , ‘An emotion is a thought in one’s mind.’. The answer that the trainer gave was ‘An emotion is an energy within the body that creates an awareness of its state through feeling’, which probably was a sensible answer !
There are two kinds of emotions that one can experience. Simple enough to guess, they are Good emotions and Bad emotions. Good emotions (happiness etc) are the ones that the body likes to carry and the Bad emotions (fear etc) are the ones that the body does NOT like to carry.
The mind is an invisible force that resides within the human body and assists the human being to experience various states of emotions. The mind plays an important part in managing the emotional state of a person.
The equation is simple, Mind is a slate on which the external situation, understood by 5 senses (see, listen, hear, touch, taste) and governed by one’s intelligence, intellect, memory, beliefs & values create an emotion that is visible through the gesture of a human being.
Now, what does EI tells us?
EI has 5 basic competencies as follows,
Self awareness
Self awareness is all about being aware of the emotional state of oneself. It also extends to expressing the emotions at right time and not suppressing them within yourself. If you are getting angry, upset, disappointed or frustrated, then its essential to identify the state of emotion and take a corrective action immediately.
Self management
This is all about managing one’s emotions and how you appear to others.
For example, if in a meeting, due to some lengthy arguments and counter arguments you are feeling angry, then its better to announce that I am getting angry, and I suppose I need to take a break. than continuing with the meting, which is likely to affect your judgment and might end into something you might repent !
Self motivation
Self motivations tells you to have a passion in life. It tells you to discover your own passion and pursue it in order to keep you motivated in life. It suggest you to have a goal in life (personal & professional) so you can go all about pursuing the goal. Doing the job you love and loving the job you do is the mantra of keeping one highly motivated.
Empathy
Empathy is all about getting in someone else’s shoes and DO nothing ! Yes, do nothing !
It suggest you should empathize with others to understand what situation they are going through before taking any decision about anyone. It helps you to understand what pains or problems someone is going through and how it might affect someone’s performance at work.
It also suggest that one should empathize with oneself. It helps understand what emotional state you are going through and what situation you are under. Self empathy is all about giving time to yourself every day to ensure you are in a good emotional state to realize your situation control limits.
Effective relationships
Effective relationships is the relationship that is Goal Oriented. In the discussion, after much debate, it was convinced that all relationships you can think of are goal oriented. An effective relationship is also one the one that comes with expectations and the one where the expectations are met.
Its recommended that you have a clear understanding of emotions with whom you get into an effective relationship.
Finally, at the end of the training, it was asked of us to create our own definition of EI, in exact 40 words and I could come out as follows,
EI is all about knowing and motivating yourself, controlling your behavior irrespective of situation type, understanding others better, relate to them for betterment of your social and work life that could translate into more happiness and help earn more money and growth.
As I said earlier, its been a very interesting day on Friday in training. More thoughts on various topics within the EI will hopefully follow soon on my blog.
As usual, let me know your comments 🙂
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