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Maintaining People-First Leadership at Quad Graphics

How does emotional intelligence training fit in a fast-paced, industrial setting? At Quad Graphics, it’s how leadership stays committed to the company’s founding values.

Overview

Situation: QG believes in strong work relationships as a means to break down walls and build & maintain trust. As the company has grown and evolved, they recognized the need to introduce an emotional intelligence program so leaders can continue to work through people and live the company values.

Solution: QG partnered with Six Seconds to support the ongoing development of EQ. Utilizing the SEI, the world’s leading emotional intelligence assessment, the company provided senior leaders with the time and knowledge to ‘repurpose’ their daily actions to align with QG’s values and way of doing business.

Results: Participants were deeply engaged by the content and the delivery method. They experienced a greater awareness of their own reactions, and many reported significant behavioral changes as a result.

“What I am seeing and hearing to date are concrete examples of situations where participants actually applied what was covered in our SEI Leadership session.”

– Sue Barrett, Manager Quad/Education

Situation

Quad/Graphics (www.qg.com) is a highly innovative printing company. Established in 1971 in Wisconsin, the company now has 12,000 employees. In the words of Sue Barrett, Manager Quad/Education, “the company was founded on the value of strong work relationships as a means to break down walls, build & maintain trust and simply do what’s right for our customers and coworkers.” As a result, the company is committed to leaders living the company values — rather than “teaching” a culture, the company believes culture grows from the way its people live each day.

Solution

Barrett says, “What I am seeing and hearing to date are concrete examples of situations where participants actually applied what was covered in our SEI Leadership session. For example, a group of managers was having a heated discussion surrounding a complex situation. As voices raised, one member stated the emotion he was feeling and how it was blocking him from discussing the issue further with any clarity of thought. He asked if the group would consider a 15 minute break before they proceeded. Some of the participants were taken back; this was not typical behavior from this individual. They consented to a break, revisited the situation and generated a solution. Had this break not be called out, the decision may have been based on inaccurate information and/or taken much longer to determine.”

As in most businesses, Quad Graphics leaders are constantly challenged to make quick, accurate decisions without a clear “right answer”; EQ is helping leaders navigate this maze to maintain QG’s outstanding performance.

Results

INCREASED AWARENESS

Of the “people side” dynamics of leadership.

GREATER COMMITMENT

To work with and through people.

REAL WORLD APPLICATION

Team members putting the training into action.

Products & Services Delivered

EQ Skills

SEI – Six Seconds’ Emotional Intelligence Assessment is a validated psychometric tool for measuring emotional intelligence, used with over 250k people worldwide.

Custom Development

To address the organization’s specific needs using Six Seconds’ methodology, a custom program was developed, tested, and implemented.

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