As I have discussed in other posts, well-developed EI contributes to your success by enabling you to do the following: Recognise your emotions and those of others. Use emotions strategically. Understand emotions – how they change, escalate and how they blend together. Manage your emotions and influence those of people around you. Read my previous […]

A friend and former colleague of mine recently shared with me a story (she called it a rant because she was quite upset at the time). She has been working on a project, putting in insane hours on weekends and in the evenings and has achieved remarkable results in a short time. She is a […]

I have recently started a coaching piece using two key diagnostics – the Human Synergistics Life Styles Inventory (to measure leader behaviour) and the MSCEIT (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test). In brief, the LSI is a wonderful tool for examining behaviour and divides behaviours into those driven by satisfaction needs and those driven by […]

One of the reasons that many people find it difficult to change their behaviour is that they are not comfortable with being uncomfortable. Take this example… I was coaching a very senior leader (let’s call him Neville) on his communication style. Neville could be very back and white in his views and also found group […]

There is a lot of work on human motivation and how, as leaders, to motivate our people to bring their best. One of the key pieces of work that I refer to regularly is David McClelland’s work on Social Motives. McClelland identified three key human motivations: Need for Achievement (N ach) focus on goals, improving […]

In a previous blog, I discussed some practical ways to use emotions in the workplace. https://www.shapingchange.com.au/blog/?p=20 Let’s explore a little further. If you are interested in EI, there is a very good book called the Emotional Intelligent Manager, by Caruso and Salovey. The work of Mayer, Salovey and Caruso’s on EI tells us the following: […]

On our travels through the US and Canada, we have crossed a number of cattle grids (I have also seen them referred to as Texas gates). Most people would know them – the metal grids in the road to prevent livestock from crossing. They are most usually used on the open range, where there are […]

Yesterday I visited the Buffalo Bill Historic Centre in Cody, Wyoming. I learned a lot of things about the man behind the legend, and something that struck me was the rise and fall of his fortunes. According to the history presented in the exhibits, Buffalo Bill Cody made his fortune many times, but was prone […]

I recently visited the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington and I struck up a conversation with our friendly tour guide about what it is like to work there. Jewell told me “Most employees are really happy here. They love seeing the results of their work, the finished product at the end of construction. The benefits […]