How To Apply Emotional Intelligence At Your Workplace?

Many trainings, coachings and meetings have taken place over the past few weeks. They come in at a faster pace than I can write about them. Fully packed weeks I must say. In my deepest of heart, I consider it a bonus being able to reach out to so many people within these few short weeks. And these are definitely the perks of being a public speaker and trainer. The honor is definitely mine.

One of the most intensive trainings I’ve conducted just a week ago was “Emotional Intelligence at Work” for a major government institution. Real issues were presented to me and I took the time to address them, knowing how my comments would affect the participants’ career and lives.

As they shared and generated more interest in human behavior at the workplace, I was impressed by how they could react with the concepts taught. Talk about accelerated learning. After all, when you put in heart into what you are doing, you couldn’t wait to make it work. That was what I witnessed.

When it comes to the workplace, emotions can fly. More often than not, bosses judge the staffs while customers always have to the right to complaint. You can’t underestimate the power of emotion. They will simply overwhelm you when you’re not in-charge of yourself.

Here are some ways you can apply better emotional intelligence to your work:

1. Respect emotions, the power of emotions.

2. Understand your emotions do and will affect others at work.

3. Commit to looking at the useful and productive side of the tasks.

4. Check yourself if your responses and motivations are driven by purposeful emotions.

5. Create a list of emotions that you want to display at work.

6. Insist on making yourself a positive influence with your colleagues.

7. Let yourself immerse in the joy of creative juice with your tasks.

(Source: wekie.com)

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7 Key Aspects You MUST Pay Attention To When Writing An Appealing Resume And Cover Letter

I’ve just finished conducting a very intensive two-day training yesterday on “Cover Letter, Resume and Email Writing” where we addressed some of the most pertinent issues in the job-seeking process.

As we explored the various strategies and options in writing these essentials tools in the search for jobs, the participants took note of the important yet often over-looked dimensions of cover letter and resume writing. I was pleased that everyone got started working on their letters and resumes and quite a few had produced high quality content. I wish every single one of them the very best in their job search endeavors.

Hence, if you are in the process of seeking for a new job or possibilities of career enhancement, here are the key aspects you must pay attention to when it comes to creating appealing resume and cover letter:

1. Customize them towards the individual job title, job scope, company and industry. It’s best to avoid using a ‘standard’ or ‘generic’ set of cover letter and resume for every single application you send. This will only reduce your chances as they will come across as ‘less fitting’ to what each company wants.

2. Typographical errors must be eliminated. They simply don’t provide any positive impression about you. This will not do you any justice.

3. Format them for easy reading. With the exception of cover letter, resumes should not be clumps or bunches of paragraphs where your talents are ‘hidden within the jungle’. Use bullet points and other formatting tools to enable your potential employers an easier time understanding you. On the other hand, cover letters’ paragraphing should also not be long essays with unbroken points.

4. Pay attention to the language used. As your choice of words and phrases affects the mind of the employers, take heed of using the appropriate words that will best highlight your positives and increase your chances.

5. Write them for your potential employers, instead of for yourself. Remember that your resume and cover letter is not a personal diary, writing for your own leisure reading. They are read by all the employers you send to. Therefore, write it through how they will read it, from their point, not from yours.

6. Emphasize your strengths in your letter and resume. Instead of hampering yourself or being too negative, work on bringing out your strengths and the positives through these articles. Seek a fair balance in the tone of your cover letter and draw out the affirmative aspects in your resumes.

7. Avoid unnecessary information in your cover letter and resume. Some job seekers clutter their resumes with things that are irrelevant and lost focus in the process. This will only seek to distract your potential employers from qualifying you as a likely candidate for their employment. Take care to leave out what are not necessary and put in the appropriate information in your letter and resume.

Here’s my sincerest wish to you for your success in job search. May you Excel Beyond Excellence!

*** To aid you further in your job seeking process and should you be looking out for online job sites or employment agencies, you can find some of the most helpful sites here:

Useful Job Search Sites: http://wekie.com/2007/11/06/useful-job-search-sites

Prominent Job and Employment Agencies: http://wekie.com/2008/05/13/prominent-job-and-employment-agencies

Source: wekie.com

5 Things You Should Watch Out To Provide A Sense Of Stability And Steadiness At Work

As this is another work week where people engage in various commercial and institutional events, it’s imperative that you take positive action to provide that much needed stability in the midst of the busyness. This will also help your workplace acquire a sense of steadiness and fair predictability.

In some of my recent coaching and consultations to companies, I advised on certain elements that will be helpful to create a better workplace culture. Here are some of the things you should watch out for to create that dependability in your work environment.

1. Watch out for your display of Emotional Intelligence at work

2. Watch out for the way you communicate.

3. Watch out for how your work relationships are build.

4. Watch out for how conflicts arise and nip them in the bud before they escalate.

5. Watch out for the efficiency in your work responsibilities.

7 Simple Steps To Negotiate And Network Your Way Through Life And On To Success

While yesterday was Saturday, I applaud the commitment of the different department managers who attended Day 2 of the in-house “Effective Negotiation Skills” training. We explored and discussed the various negotiation strategies and specific concepts that will take them further at work and in life.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with them and training them as everyone were highly responsive and interactive. There were laughter galore and lessons were imparted. They also took notes as we related real life experiences and examples.

And it’s obvious that in life, we do negotiate and interact with our network of friends. In the midst of all these interaction, we can take the opportunity to negotiate our way through life and on to success with the following steps:

1. Pay attention to what you are looking for in life.

2. Establish what you can offer to others that will benefit them, the greater the better.

3. Build up rapport and relationship with them as you interact and contact these people.

4. Request for a mutually beneficial collaboration with them.

5. Seek compromise on what both of you can agree on.

6. Put an agreed plan into place.

7. Keep each other updated and in contact for further refinements and continuing partnerships.

When you work on your negotiation skills, you can enhance your network to better benefit others and yourself to life’s success. Hence your life becomes one that Excels Beyond Excellence!

Now, Who’s Your Mentor? Exploring The Beauty Of Mentoring

Having been a Mentor to various individuals and certain organizations for years, I derived even greater insights than before on the essence of effective mentoring. This improvement concept does bring with it a myriad of benefits, and they are all beautiful benefits:

For the Mentee,

1. Mentoring shaves of years of unnecessary mistakes in the process, shortening the learning curve.

2. Mentoring brings to him the ‘insider’ and “behind the scene’ look at how the organizations and industry is like, really like.

3. Mentoring allows him to be specific in reducing his actual weaknesses and extending his strengths, giving him a more powerful advantage in whatever industry he is in.

For the Mentor,

4. Mentoring allows him to practice his leadership and coaching skills beyond where he is now.

5. Mentoring lets him play out and experiment different concepts of subjects that he already knew.

6. Mentoring brings to him a sense of satisfaction knowing that he has played a significant role in grooming and changing someone’s life for the better.

For the Organization,

7. Mentoring provides it a possible leadership and managerial succession plan and evolving line of command.

8. Mentoring allows the organization to discover hidden talents within the organization, with likelihood of greater loyalty from the individual.

9. Mentoring saves the organization money in retraining and orientating a total outsider and reduced wastage of resources.

Most of all,

10. Mentoring allows everybody to Excel Beyond Excellence!

Do Dedicated Parents Make Better Managers And Leaders?

Moving back to the work week, we see people hurrying to their office. The bulk of this workforce will consist of staffs and managers who are parents. Being parents usually signify the demand of time and energy to take care of their children. Hence, the direct questions is, do dedicated parents imply that they will become better managers or leaders?

In Today’s paper, Marian Ruderman, a director of the Center for Creative Leadership, certainly think so. She cited studies that conclude that family-focused workers can make better managers.

The following is her article on this issue:

Dedicated Parents, Better Mangers?

PARENTS across the country can now hold their heads high when heading out of the office to attend a teacher’s conference or coach a football game.

Being a committed parent can enhance managerial ability, according to a study by the Center for Creative Leadership and Clark University.

Child-rearing develops skills that are useful for work, the study found. Being able to manage the demands of raising children and running a household helps people better manage the stress of work instead of adding to it.

Family experiences provide managers with positive feeling that carry over to the workplace and facilitate performance.

They also help managers to develop the ability to see others’ views — a capacity that is critical to supervising others, working in teams or relating to superiors.

The study contradicts conventional wisdom that parents are easily distracted by their responsibilities at home, in particular their children, and are therefore more likely to be ineffective at work.

Published last year in the

Journal of Applied Psychology, the study shows for the first time how raising a family helps develop skills such as negotiating, compromising, conflict resolution and multi-tasking, which are important traits of successful managers.

The study has important implications for employees and organizations alike.

While many organizations have adopted family-friendly policies, most still operate under the assumption that a family focus will detract from performance.

But the research suggests this assumption is wrong. In fact, a family-focused manager may be the leader your company should have.

Life beyond Work

Life outside of work is important for both women and men — and their careers.

Investing time in family relationships, friendships, volunteer work and personal interests has been shown to enhance on-the job performance as well as psychological well-being.

Roles and responsibilities outside of work can serve as creative and supportive sources for learning how to be a more effective manager.

Off-the-job experiences help people to hone interpersonal skills, handle multiple tasks and develop the ability to draw on relevant background and information.

Regular exercise and effective leadership also go hand-in-hand.

Time invested in regular exercise, even if it means spending less time at work, is correlated with higher — not lower — ratings of leadership effectiveness.

Research suggests that leaders who exercise regularly are rated significantly higher by their bosses, peers and direct reports than non-exercisers. It seems a healthy lifestyle can help executives to better cope with the stresses and demands of their positions.

An organisation’s attitude towards employees’ life outside of work is a factor in retaining them. Whether they are raising young families, preparing for retirement, caring for elderly parents or pursuing personal interests, employees often feel their organisations forget that they have a life outside work. Organisations and leaders can help all generations navigate their need for work-life balance by: Clarifying priorities. People have trouble figuring out their priorities when everything at work is deemed urgent. They struggle to give higher priority to family time when work pressure does not ease up.

Realistic resourcing. People have too much work to be done during normal work hours, so they routinely put in extra hours.

The perception is that their organizations do not care enough about employees to bother resourcing the work appropriately.

Reducing stress. Extreme stress is one reason people leave their jobs or turn down interesting positions.

Some people feel forced to choose between an interesting or challenging job and the kind of life they want to lead.

Creating flexibility. A flexible schedule allows people with children to get more work done and yet enables them to be with their families.

For older people approaching retirement, offering this would be a convenient solution and a sign of the respect the organization has for its employees.

Why Must You Manage Your Emotions Excellently?

Today’s training was on “Emotional Intelligence at Work” for the staff of a major ministry in Singapore. We had lots of fun and intense discussions on managing their emotions, both at work and in life.

Here are some reasons why you must truly manage your emotions and make it excellent:

1. It’s an ongoing survival issue. Your emotions provide you the means to react and change in varying situations.

2. It helps in your relationship building process.

3. It matters on your happiness.

4. It generates fulfillment in your life.

5. It creates unity amongst like minded people.

It’s Not Just About Work! 7 Areas You MUST REALLY Pay Attention To At Your Workplace For Your Own Career Excellence

At the beginning of this work week, it will be a helpful and enriching idea to start pondering about your career with respect to your life. Whenever I’m conducting coaching and counseling for group participants and individuals, I’ve highlighted that work is not just about work.

It’s a lot more. And you have to be aware of them or else your career outcome may not be as productive as you wish to be. In fact, merely putting your career on work alone tends to lead to stagnation at best and retardation of career at worse.

If you wish to know what are others must you really pay attention to, here are the areas:

1. The quality of your work and your competency, and not just merely work.

2. Your relationships with all the people in your life.

3. The way you communicate with your bosses, colleagues and customers and the way you serve them.

4. The clarity of your work responsibilities and your role.

5. The values that your presence bring.

6. Your personal career progress that fits your goals and dreams in life.

7. The overall fulfillment of the company’s objectives via your work performance.

The 15 Proven ‘S’ Ways Of Managing And Improving Your Work Relationships

So long as you work, you will forge relationships. And relationships have to be there or nothing gets done. Yet work relationships must be tactfully handled or it may run out of control. Negative relationships tend to escalate much faster than whatever is positive.

A significant amount of my training, coaching and counseling involve helping the business owners, executives and the individuals to better their relationships at their workplace. The quality of such relationships is an outstanding factor in determining one’s happiness at work. Hence, meticulous attention ought to be paid and ongoing efforts must be made in order to seek enhancement.

Here, in no particular order of importance, are 15 of the proven ways to manage and improve your relationships at work. (Incidentally, all of them begin with a ‘S’ so they are called the ‘S’ ways):

1. Seek clarification on duties and tasks.

2. Stop playing the blame game.

3. Share the responsibilities reasonably.

4. Strengthen your emotions.

5. Socialize productively with colleagues.

6. Smile often to others.

7. Start your day positively and motivated.

8. Simplify the complicated process.

9. Sort out issues, conflicts and differences as soon as you can.

10. Speak clearly and diplomatically to be understood.

11. Shut up and listen when necessary.

12. Self-evaluate your behavior through personal reflection times.

13. Sense the mood of others and the atmosphere to act sensitively.

14. Show appreciation to your bosses, colleagues and customers.

15. Strive for overall improvement always.

Whenever you implement any or more of these ‘S’ ways artfully, you are providing an opportunity for advancement of your work relationships. This will surely take you further, towards Excelling Beyond Excellence!

How You Can Step Up To Life’s Changes And Challenges

I was with the training group just two days ago, completing the final module for the 2.5 days “Step Up for Change” training. It’s a government initiated nation-wide empowerment training for women in Singapore, helping them to step out of the comfort zone, step up to challenges and step forward to meet life’s changes confidently.

What I dearly liked about the training was the interactively and the sharing of the female participants on issues faced by women in Singapore. Truly there are challenges waiting to be addressed. It hence became evident that the participants had recommitted to work and improve their lives better with the steps they had created.

And to follow on, here are more ways you can help yourself step up to life’s changes and face the challenges:

1. Be willing to change your paradigm.

2. Work on your confidence.

3. Be informed of changes.

4. Manage your finances and resources.

5. Enlist help and seek expert advice.

6. Make positive acquaintances and network.

7. Review your plans regularly for improvement.

I sincerely wish every one of the participants the very best in their lives and may they always Excel Beyond Excellence!