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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The Art Of Making Your Mentorship Meaningful

It was early this week that I met up with my various Mentees. I’ve always enjoyed such meetings because this offers an opportunity to catch up as well as speak up on the different issues faced, both in communication and in life.

Upon reflection and recollection of my mentorship workshops, I took greater strides to apply some of the concepts into my mentoring style. Because of the different personalities and experience you’ll come to face with from others, the mentorship relationship becomes ever evolving. That’s why mentoring is an art in itself.

When you employ the strategy and tools of mentorship, you effectively put in gear the cycle of change. It takes tact in communication and sensitivity in implementation. Very much have to be tied down and set up between the two of you, be it you being the mentor or the mentee.

I suggest employing the art of creating a “Meaningful Mentorship” by paying attention to the following pointers:

For Mentors:

1. Inculcate the spirit of sharing for the two of you.

2. Understand that learning is two-way. While your mentee learns from you, so can you learn.

3. Create a culture of mutual communication for trust and reliability.

For Mentees:

1. Know what makes your mentor tick so that you know how to maximize his accomplishments.

2. Ask the right questions to get the best practices.

3. Respect and show appreciation to your mentor. When you show appreciation, your mentor feels appreciated and is willing to support you further, giving more in the process.

(Source: wekie.com)

5 Important Steps To Super-Charge Your Relationship Communication In Life

It was just a few nights ago where the evening newspaper, Lian He Wan Bao, published my advice on the headlines and the inner page. I was engaged by the organizers because of my expertise in relationship communication and my experience in coaching different people.

Based on what the reporter had observed, I was being interviewed and shared some practical tips on how people can improve their relationships with each other.

As a Professional Excellence speaker and trainer, I am passionately interested to see people communicate better, build quality relationships, eventually be competent in all the Professional Excellence skills and ultimately excel beyond in various aspects of their lives.

Indeed, we must start to consider how the world has changed and evolved. It’s through our self-reflection and mutual consideration that we can discover enhanced ways to relate with one another.

Be it with colleagues, parent and child, staff and boss, friends or other forms of interaction, you have to be more tactful and remain sensitive to your relationship building skills. Fortunately, there are 5 of such important steps to make our communication so much better in our relationships and interactions.

The steps are:

Step 1: Consider the other party’s position first.

Step 2: Understand how the way you communicate your viewpoints can affect that person and your relationship.

Step 3: Seek to bridge the gap between both perceptions by establishing the common purposes.

Step 4: Practice saying those sentences to yourself before you talk in person. Ensure they come across acceptable.

Step 5: Check for mutual understanding and appreciation during the communication process.

Remember, Communicate Well, Make Your Relationship Excel!

(Source: wekie.com)

If You Are Happy, You Are Worth At Least $20,000

Suppose you were given the choice of hanging around with happy hearty people or slugging it out with the depressed gloomy grouches, which will you choose? And why?

Well, chances are, most people do prefer the smiling faces with that sincere joyous mood than to see the frowns on the facials.

It’s little wonder that we are so driven to want to be happy. Perhaps the journey towards happiness might be a bit mystical and obscure, with the unpredictable climate of changes in different life dimensions. However, being around happy people do seem to help alleviate those drowsy blues.

According to Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, who has just recently concluded a study on happiness and its interactive results, he said, “Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don’t even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you,”

Hailing from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Christakis, a trained physician and social scientist, affirmed that, “Emotions have a collective existence — they are not just an individual phenomenon.”

The study by his team of researchers had analyzed data, statistics and information ranging from 1983 to 2003. It was based on the happiness of 4,739 people as well as their social connections. These included their spouses, relatives, close friends, neighbors and co-workers.

It emerged with evidence that the more happy people you know and surround yourself with, the more likely you will be happier yourself. Hence, happiness is contagious, it gets “spread”.

Co-researcher, Associate Professor of Political Science, James H. Fowler from The University of California, San Diego said their research discovered the link that “if your friend’s friend’s friend becomes happy, that has a bigger impact on you being happy than putting an extra $5,000 in your pocket.”

Drawing from further data, they determined that your neighbor’s joyfulness and delight can improve your own happiness by 34 percent. Your happy network and contacts will increase your joy by 15 percent, while your friend’s happy friend or your closed one’s elated friend adds 10 percent to your chances of being happy.

Finally, your friend’s friend’s friend, the 3^rd degree contact, will add 6 percent to your personal joyfulness level. Be with any additional unhappy person, and you become unhappier by 7 percent concurrently as each negative person enter your contact.

This means that your happiness level is able to affect people around you and your close acquaintances.

A note to add, the researches are not advising that you change all melancholy your friends, but strive to work together for an improved relationship.

Extending from other previous studies, they asserted that an extra $5,000 improved your chances of happiness by 2 percent. This, Dr. Christakis, would imply that “a happy friend is worth about US $20,000”

That’s what I call a golden smile. 🙂

(Source: wekie.com)

Exploring The Essence Of What It Truly Means To Be A Befriender

As Day 2 of the double Sunday Befrienders’ Training last week came to an end, some participants lingered on. We managed to discuss on the real life issues that faced the client’s families. These are not merely misunderstanding but real cumbersome problems that plagued these families and existed for a long time.

Being a Befriender implies that one ought to be ready to serve that special friend for the troubled person. Your presence could sometimes make the difference between the family’s hope and despair. You bring the hope, the comfort and the possibilities of a brighter outlook to their own future.

The following essential points thus become crucial for the Befriender:

1. The key to being a Befriender is Trust. And you will be entrusted with many untold information divulged by the family you befriend.

2. You have to balance the Ethics issue with your Integrity as a Befriender.

3. Your perspective of life is called into challenge. Be steadfast but receptive to other lifestyles that exist for your befriending family.

4. You should help the family prepare for a life after you. Guide them as a friend to help themselves live better on their own.

5. Both of you are eventually transformed, enriched and empowered in the process. It’s not only that the family gets better; it also becomes your personal reflection to appreciate life.

(Source: wekie.com)

What Coaches Should Do When Faced With Difficult Clients

When I finished conducting the 2 day course on “Coaching Skills for Leaders” on Monday and Tuesday last week, I took a few moments to recap and reflect on what I had taught. In addition, it was also a reminder to how coaching is so much needed at the workplace. We often find ourselves in tight spots with the changing pace of workplace challenges. Yet we don’t always get the necessary help or advice when needed.

In your role as a coach at work, you want to understand that this is a reflection of the client’s lifestyle. His perspectives of life are hence displayed thru his actions and thoughts. If uncontrolled, emotional outburst will be experienced.

Here are some pointers you should follow if your client takes a sudden turn to become difficult:

1. Repeat your agreement and ground rules.

2. Reaffirm your intention with taking on this coaching assignment

3. Reassure that you are working for his benefit.

4. Review your coaching style and sequence.

5. Relate what works for him.

6. Rebuild your rapport.

7. Reestablish your goals and end results of coaching.

8. Remind your client that no one cares more for his own life than himself, hence he is ultimately accountable for his own success, not you.

(Source: wekie.com)

How You Can Suavely And Smoothly Network With Flair

Throughout the first few days of this week, I’ve been conducting the trainings for a few organizations and institutions. Coincidentally, they all happened to be networking related seminars. One was “Network And Communicate Your Way To Success”, while the other was “Network Your Way to Success”. However since the participants will be using these skills for different focuses, hence I customized the content to their relevance. After all, what use is a skill if it can’t be properly applied in the right context?

What was really fun about these trainings was that it involves plenty of interactions and practice. The participants also got into a glimpse of Human Behavioral Psychology, an exploration into how human beings act and react in social settings and encounters.

After all, we are all social creatures. None of us can avoid not being influenced by others. Hence networks are formed no matter you want or not. The key question is: how then do you network positively and with flair?

Here are some tips that will surely help you along in your interaction, making them suave and smooth:

1. Be willing to approach others to break the ice.

2. Be purposeful in your words and consider how your words affect others.

3. Be paying attention to what others are telling you.

4. Be tactful and diplomatic with your comments and replies.

5. Be in contact by following up with them.

(Source: wekie.com)

The 5 Key Dynamics You Must Pay Attention To When You Communicate And Solve Problems With Your Team

A quick check with my schedule indicated that the past few days were absolutely packed with various trainings. The pace of living a life as a public speaker, trainer and consultant has picked up tremendously over the years. To me, this is somewhat a sign of the growing need and recognition for Professional Excellence trainings, speaking engagements and personal consultations as well as an increase in the participants’ willingness to upgrade themselves.

No longer is it possible to just be contented with fundamental technical skills, the soft skills aspects are now the essentials. It’s not just the norm, but it’s so necessary that even companies are demanding that their staffs know how to build better relationships with quality communication. This is even more so when problems abound at work, and, to a fair degree, exist in their personal lives.

Hence just 2 days ago, on Saturday, I completed Day 2 of the “Communication and Problem Solving for Leaders” training. In this customized in-house workshop for that multi-national cooperation, I explored with the leader-participations the range of key dynamics in leading people via effective communication, resulting in better ways to solve work problems and issues.

I also made sure that these learning points were easy and quick to apply with fast results. When the participants gave their input, I was highly delighted when they integrated the communication concepts into their demonstrations.

Taking it further, some of the key dynamics that you must pay attention to whenever you are communicating with your team to solve problems include:

1. The Agreement on the values and ultimate outcome or objectives of the project.

2. The Acceptance of the ground rules during the exploration of the issues and the discussion of the problems.

3. The Understanding of the flow of the problem solving model and process.

4. The Willingness to suspend personal biasness and let go of the limitations in perceptions.

5. The Intention to cooperate with each other in working towards resolving the problems.

(Source: wekie.com)

How To Integrate Leadership Communication Into Your Interaction With People

I completed the first segment of the training yesterday with a sense of satisfaction. Although it was Saturday, I was glad the participant-leaders were able to be dedicating their time to better themselves. After all, this course “Communication and Problem Solving for Leaders” was specifically customized for them.

We had a fair bit of in-depth discussion on what it meant for a leader to communicate. I call this “Leadership Communication”. The participants understood that the manners and style of communication were also very much affected by the leader’s personality. Hence, I was pleased when the leaders were able to integrate the various concepts into their practice.

When we explored the concepts of leadership communication, we also derived various ways of displaying them at work.

Here are some of them:

1. Understand how your staffs prefer to interact and communicate.

2. Discuss with them your corporate goals with values and how you are going to lead them to fulfill these objectives.

3. Seek to inspire them by communicating trust in their capabilities.

4. Remember that one key element of communication is listening, active listening.

5. Let your staff know that you understand them by communicating with empathy and your willingness to adopt possible, workable ideas.

(Source: wekie.com)

5 Practical Ways To Build Up Your Quality Interpersonal Relationships And Network

When I completed the 2 day training on “Up Your Image with Power Dressing and Interpersonal Skills” yesterday, I had a strong sense of satisfaction and elation. I was truly happy to see how determined the participants were in wanting to make a progress change in their lives. They participated in the activities with enthusiasms and initiated several ideas of their own, from sharing how to relate with others to networking on their own.

I also liked how the class was filled with an air of tranquility and anticipated excitement, eager to go forth to make that change in their own lives. I look forward to hearing more news of how they have created even more positive relationships through their interaction with others.

Adding on, here are some of the ways that you can build your interpersonal relationship with quality and better tap on your network.

1. Maintain regular contact with each other.

2. Ensure that time is spent meaningfully.

3. Seek values agreement and acknowledgment of each other.

4. Show empathy and experience in your interaction.

5. Provide a chance for mutual progress in various aspects of your interpersonal relationships.

(Source: wekie.com)