Emotional Intelligence

I have chosen Emotional Intelligence as the theme for the first Lunch Box. I am most of the way through reading Daniel Goleman’s book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ and I have found what I have read very beneficial, and I would like to share some of the key points during this Lunch Box.

In preparation for the first session, please could participants have a read through the following web-pages:
An introduction to emotinal intelligence on ‘business balls’

A short reading guide to Goleman’s book.

And finally, have a go at this emotional intelligence test.

Having had a little more time to prepare, I can now be clearer about the aims of this Emotional Intelligence Lunchbox:
-to introduce the idea and the value of emotional intelligence
-to learn about how the anatomy of the brain effects the emotions we experience
-to use this understanding to help us become more self-aware about our emotions, and in doing so, upping our collective EI quotient.

There is a great deal of material out there on emotional intelligence and so this three-session Lunchbox will be limited to focusing on understanding one’s own emotions; I propose another Lunchbox series in 6 months’ time to look at working with emotional intelligence once everyone has had the chance to digest the content of these first sessions.

Yesterday we ran our first Lunchbox on Emotional Intelligence. For those of you who were unable to make it, we kicked off by talking about the preparatory reading material, which lead to a discussion about why Goleman values emotional intelligence.

For the main body of the session I offered a potted version of the second chapter in the book: an anatomy of an emotional hijacking. I think for most - and correct me I am wrong - this was the point at which everyone was able to see how a pop-neuroscience and pop-physiological description of the brain is able to explain the emotional phenomena that we have all at sometime felt.

The homework for the next session is to read chapter 5 of Emotional Intelligence. We also agreed to keep a private emotional diary for the next week to see if any of these ideas discussed offered any insights into the emotions that people feel on a daily basis.

Following on from our lunchtime conversation - something that just struck me (not for the first time) is how we can (or maybe inadvertently do?) convey our emotional intelligence when communicating via technology…

Without excessive use of :-(

The earliest roots of emotional intelligence can be traced to Darwin’s work on the importance of emotional expression for survival and second adaptation.

We really should have a follow-up to this initial set of lunchbox sessions

Angela - over to you?

This sounds interesting! When are you planning on carrying on?

The original plan was for a member of the last group to propose the next topic. I believe it was Angela that volunteered. I am happy to follow up with the next session emotional intelligence, but i wanted to give someone else a go!

Oliver.Broadbent - 14 February 2011 01:55 PM

We really should have a follow-up to this initial set of lunchbox sessions

I agree

Agreed!