Patty & I were talking about Abby Sunderland’s press conference and a comment she made. Why is the “big story” the accident and rescue — instead of a 16 year old succeeding to sail 12,000 miles? I don’t know about you, but I heard nothing about the first 11,999 miles… it wasn’t a “story” until she was lost. It raises important questions about where we, the media-plugged-in-world, choose to put our attention.
Is this the norm, and how does that affect the way we see the world?
In our daily lives, and all the ups and downs we face a dozen times a day, where do we each choose to focus? And how does that focus affect us?
Bob Cudmore of WVTL, Amsterdam, NY, interviews Joshua Freedman about the new book, INSIDE CHANGE, how change works — and how emotion can make or break change efforts. Topics include why 70% of change fails, how politicians have used the power of emotion to drive change, trust, and fueling personal change with positive emotion.
Six Seconds’ COO Joshua Freedman, coauthor of the new book INSIDE CHANGE, was interviewed today on WILY (Illinois) by Tootie Cooksie for the show, Hotline. The 30-min podcast is available here (or download the mp3 file for your ipod).
“Change is part of our lives – but despite all our experience 70% of organization change fails, and 60% of change failure is due to the people-side. What do we do? Joshua Freedman, coauthor of the new book INSIDE CHANGE discusses the solution in this radio interview with WILY’s Tootie Cooksie.”
Jay Grant, network member and wellness coach, is a regular guest on Sacramento & Company. Here is a clip about working from home and finding a work-life balance while working at home — including several practical tips!
Six Seconds Network members Michele Sagan & Ranita Rajandram use EQ in a beautiful program to help children succeed for life:
Children today need a more holistic education than what is currently available, she said adding that “they need to learn about emotional intelligence instead of just focusing on academics, which was why she was inspired to start the InsightKIDs programme.
Sagan was speaking at the official launching ceremony of the InsightKIDs learning centre in Medan Damansara in Kuala Lumpur.
The event was attended by Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong and Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Jacob Dungau Sagan, as well as parents of children enrolled in InsightKIDs programmes.
“InsightKIDs should stand out as an example in the private sector for complementing the exisiting education system,” said Dr Wee.
Dubai Knowledge Village Highlights Catalyst Role Of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) For Organizational Growth – Workshop Features EQ Guru Joshua Freedman
Dubai Knowledge Village (DKV), a member of TECOM Investments, recently hosted a presentation by Joshua Freedman, a world leading authority on developing and applying Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Chief Operating Officer of Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network, highlighting the potential of EQ as a catalyst for growth among organizations.
Freedman was addressing a workshop on ‘The EQ Advantage: The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence’, organized by Dubai Knowledge Village in partnership with Dynamic Learning-Six Seconds, a leading training and development consultancy offering an effective range of human resource solutions. Over 160 delegates attended the event.
In his presentation, Freedman detailed how people can increase EQ to be happier, stronger and more effective as an individual and a professional. Essentially regarded a soft skill, emotional intelligence is defined as ‘the ability to use emotions effectively – the key competence for relating to people, sustaining drive, and making optimal decisions’.
Dr Ayoub Kazim, Executive Director, Dubai Knowledge Village and Dubai International Academic City, said: “Joshua Freedman is acclaimed worldwide for his transformational learning programmes. It was an honour to have him lead the DKV workshop on Emotional Intelligence that saw him sharing practical strategies for applying the concept into one’s personal or professional life.
“In line with our mission to contribute towards strengthening Dubai’s knowledge base, Dubai Knowledge Village aims to periodically host such open workshops that offer fresh insights into developing additional skills.”
During the day-long event, Freedman highlighted several case studies and surveys focusing on organizational challenges to demonstrate how companies effectively leverage the science to enhance individual and team productivity.
Captivating the audience with his dynamic presence and signature humour that served as an effective ice-breaker, Freedman emphasized ‘belonging’ and ‘purpose’ as two crucial engagement factors, boosting EQ’s potential as a major building block for long-term success. He additionally discussed how emotions, as a vital component of strategic thinking, could motivate people to achieve higher levels of efficiency and ultimately contribute to the phenomenal growth of an organization.
The workshop on EQ was organised as part of Dubai Knowledge Village’s endeavour to grow as a regional centre for learning and excellence, while continuing to spearhead activities that highlight the importance of developing a highly skilled knowledge community.
Home to over 400 professional training centres, the cluster specializes in human resource development, human resource management, professional testing, as well as management training and consultancy services.
While many leaders possess the technical skills to succeed, exceptional leaders have a secret ingredient that inspires businesses to world-class performance: Emotional Quotient (EQ).
EQ is the ability to integrate thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions and is the foundation of high performing relationships. Businesses lose customers when they fail to form strong relationships with them. According to research, 70 per cent of all lost sales are EQ related and only 30 per cent are lost because of product, service quality, features or business benefits.
In today’s highly competitive world, it is important for organisations to use all available resources to the best of their ability, which includes EQ. Organisations and businesses from Microsoft and Lockheed Martin to the US Navy and Marine Corps are realising the benefits of EQ and are including EQ training in their work culture to help their staff become masterful at the “people side” of leadership.
Joshua Freedman is a master-trainer and author of books on EQ and the COO of Six Seconds, a company that develops leadership strategies. Freedman spoke to Emirates Business about the importance of EQ on the eve of his visit to the UAE for a seminar.
What role does EQ play in the success or failure of a business?
EQ is the capacity to be smart with feelings, to integrate emotion and analysis to make optimal decisions. The abbreviation ‘EQ’ comes from ‘Emotional Quotient’ – the measure of emotional intelligence. EQ is a learnable, measurable capacity that has profound affects on individual, team and organisational performance. Emotions make or break trust, change and innovation. We’ve all experienced how emotions can hamper our ability to solve problems and to build loyalty. However the opposite is also true and emotions can be used in a positive way to solve problems and build loyalty. Organisations rich in EQ have the assets to create a context where people excel. Can you imagine an organisation where trust is abundant and people are thrilled to come to work? Think how effectively people there would solve problems and innovate… And just imagine what customers would feel walking in that place. Once businesses succeeded because they had some unique product or process. Today’s businesses are more complex and are operating in a global market with constant, rapid change. In this context businesses succeed or fail because of people – and the way people connect internally and to customers. Emotions are the language and glue of relationships and emotional intelligence skills are the key to using emotions well.
How can businesses and organisations benefit from the strategy?
Our clients use EQ in developing three main areas of their business: leaders worth following, change that succeeds, and loyal customers. Real leaders envision a future and enroll people to co-create it. They inspire trust, courage, commitment and hope. While brilliance is essential, it’s not enough. Great leaders need to connect with people at a gut level. They have unique insight into people and they have a unique capacity to manage their own energy so that it resonates with others. This all grows from emotional intelligence – and we can teach these skills and make them part of the leadership culture. In terms of change, most efforts fail. Perhaps only 10 per cent of change efforts really hit the mark. Why? It is because most approaches to change focus on developing a technical and strategic plan, and they forget that humans need to execute the plan. How good is a strategy if people are not on board, or even actively resisting? So you need to take into account the human dynamics and the emotions that drive people. We can measure these intangibles, tweak strategies so they work with, rather than against, people, and teach competencies to make it work. Finally, in terms of customers, it’s a truism that relationship is everything. But how do you actually build that? EQ helps create a workforce that actually cares about customers and knows how to show it.
Marilynn Jorgensen, one of Six Seconds’ Senior Consultants, interviewed about the role of emotional intelligence in business by Greg Fairlie on “Inside Business” City 7, Dubai.
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 contends, 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.
A decade ago any talk of emotional intelligence would draw strange looks. Now many organizations include it among core competencies required for high performers.
Where emotions were once dismissed as raw and inappropriate in the office, they are now utilized as data by savvy leaders, according to Joshua Freedman, chief operating officer of Six Seconds Consulting in San Francisco.
“Leaders don’t care about emotional intelligence,†Freedman says. “They care about a business problem they have. Emotional intelligence is a tool they can use in the service of solving the problem.â€
Instead of encouraging individuals to act differently, training in emotional intelligence teaches participants to observe and analyze their own behavior while also taking note of peer reactions.
“Most corporate training focuses on behavior such as shaking hands and making direct eye contact,†Freedman says. “Emotional intelligence teaches you to pay attention to what drives the behavior of others. Emotions are data. They are real. The training takes a logical approach to emotions.â€
Six Seconds, emotional intelligence, and social-emotional learning is a feature story in the January issue of O Magazine - The New & Improved Self-Esteem (p 162) (download a PDF)
Two excerpts:
“The shift in thinking by researchers like Dweck and Baumeister dovetails with a revolutionary educational philosophy called social and emotional learning, or SEL, which takes the eminently sensible position that if students are going to be intellectual risk takers, they need to feel safe, and teaches a wide range of skills to help them navigate the world. “
“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. At Fed-Ex many senior managers now complete a course named Legacy, developed with a California-based international nonprofit named Six Seconds. One of the exercises is called Sneetch Marbles, inspired by a Dr. Seuss book. The group is divided arbitrarily into Star-Bellied Sneetches and Plain-Bellied Sneetches, working together with an equally arbitrary set of rules as an assembly line rolling marbles through pipes. But the Star Bellies have all the information and power; the Plain Bellies can’t speak unless they’re called on, and they don’t get any treats. Some of them mutiny, some want to please the boss-like Star Bellies, some undermine the process, some start cheating, some check out.
Then everyone is asked questions: What helped them be engaged or disengaged? Were they optimistic or pessimistic? Did they notice anybody else’s feelings? Did they find any purpose in the exercise? “It creates an opportunity for all kinds of interesting discussions,” says Joshua Freedman, chief operating officer of Six Seconds. “This work tells you your patterns: When I think the rules are unfair, I cheat. Or When I think it’s not going well, I blame others. Or When I think the senior manager is a jerk, I rebel. Even at very high levels of corporations, we’re all still in the schoolyard. We feel vulnerable and we’re protecting ourselves. But once people become aware of a pattern, they’re asked if it’s getting them what they really want.” Then they can change it.
Five ways to boost your emotional intelligence.
By Tara Rummell Berson
Excerpt:
Cultivate your curiosity.
We frequently ask questions out of habit without really caring about the answer (for example, asking someone, “How’s it going?” as you speed by her in the hallway). “Try honing your empathic skills by asking a question you want to know the answer to,” Freedman suggests. It could be as simple as, “How is it going with that new babysitter?” When you ask, look the other person in the eyes and wait for her answer. She’ll see that you’re truly interested, so she’ll answer thoughtfully — and likely ask how you’re doing. Creating these moments for emotional understanding has its perks, Freedman adds: Your blood pressure drops when you’re fully attentive to what someone else is saying — plus, you’ll develop more satisfying relationships.
Today’s guest is Joshua Freedman the author of At the Heart of Leadership, and an expert in Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Change. He is the COO and one of the founders of Six Seconds, one of the oldest and leading EI programs in the world. Joshua is a master EI trainer having trained over 10,000 people in 10 nations.
Bob Cudmore of WVTL, Amsterdam, NY, interviews Joshua Freedman about the new book, INSIDE CHANGE, how change works — and how emotion can make or break change efforts. Topics include why 70% of change fails, how politicians have used the power of emotion to drive change, trust, and fueling personal change with positive emotion.
Six Seconds, emotional intelligence, and social-emotional learning is a feature story in the 
