Emotional Intelligence

Session Summary

During the last class we covered the following

Mixed signals. Sometimes a "yes" is not really a yes but has a "no" as well. (e.g. "Would you play with me? Hmm... okay..."). What's behind a mixed signal are two conflicting needs (e.g. "Yes, I want to play with you because our friendship is important", and "No, I don't want to play with you because I have to work and it's important for me to be responsible"). There are several ways to deal with mixed signal.

• Not great ways:
  • Take it as a yes. Pick the answer that you like and ignore the other (e.g. "Oh, you said okay you'll play with me, let's play!"
  • Take it as a no. Recognize the hesitation and take it as a no. (e.g. "Oh looks like you don't really want to play with me, bye")
• Great way to deal with a mixed signal:

1. Recognize hesitation, show curiosity to find out what's behind a yes and a no:

"You said ok but I sensed some hesitation in your answer, is there something that concerns you about playing with me?"

"Yeah, I'd like to play but I really need to do some work"

2. Address concerns

"Ah I understand, why don't we play after you are done with your work?"

Labeling. By nature we label things, labels make our lives easier, e.g. This is a chair, this is a table. This person is a jerk. This person is fat.

The problem with labeling is that it kills curiosity, once we label something, we think we know what it is and we don't want to look deeper. For designer a chair is not just a chair, there is so much to a chair! For an emotionally intelligent person, a person is not just a jerk or a nerd, there is so much to a person! It is important to recognize when we labeled somebody and then remember that there is so much more to every person behind a label.

Formula for being happy (we did it with younger group only) When you have what you want it makes you happy. When you don't have what you want it makes you unhappy. The idea here is that expectations make us unhappy and appreciation what we have make us happy. This is a much larger topic and we didn't get much time to cover it with kids this time.

Role playing conflicting situations.

We role played conflicting situations, trying to understand the feelings and needs of each party and use that to reach an acceptable agreement.

Some of the situations:

1. Two best friends are astronauts. Only one of them will go to the moon. One just finds out that she will be sent to the moon, but the other one is really hoping to be sent to the moon. The first one is supposed to have a painful conversation with the other one.
2. A teacher is about lead her class for a recess, but one girl doesn't know how to tie her shoelaces and is embarrassed to acknowledge it. The teacher gets impatient with the girl and doesn't understand what's taking so long.

The Uncomfortable game

The Last uncomfortable challenges:

1. Recognize a mixed signal and write it down. As a bonus point try to address the concerns behind the mixed signal
2. Recognize when you label somebody and write it down. As a bonus point and ask yourself, what's behind my label? What kind of person is there? Be curious!
3. Tell others how your feel and what you need
4. Ask others how they feel and what they need

On top of that continue recording every time you do something out of your comfort zone, this counts as 1 point.

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