Emotional intelligence is the ability to effectively interpret and use emotions. Emotional intelligence, or EQ, has been shown to improve efficacy, interpersonal communication, and enhance decision-making. To assist organisations to develop leaders who are more effectively able to initiate, manage, and sustain change, The Inside Path To Change™ will provide valuable emotional intelligence concepts and tools.

The workshop provides a powerful perspective on change by developing emotional intelligence, a core competency that several leading organisations have employed to enhance their effectiveness. The workshop will enhance the managers' and employees' effectiveness as change agents by developing understanding of and skills in Six Seconds' emotional intelligence change model.

Change Processes In organisations

While essential for organisational success, change is always challenging. Although most approaches to change recognise that these challenges are both strategic and emotional, the usual premise is that with a sound strategy people will fall into line. This passing regard to the people who must execute the change leads most change efforts to fail. In contrast, Six Seconds' approach is based on understanding the human and emotional drivers of change and engaging those to assist in forming and executing effective strategy.

Six Seconds' approach integrates leading thinking on change. Kurt Lewin, the pioneering social psychologist and author of Group Decision and Social Change, recognised that behaviour is driven by the interaction of people and their environment. Applying his Force Field Analysis, Lewin identified that successful organisational change begins with "unfreezing," an essential process of both strategic and emotional planning. The model is compatible with change theory from William Bridge (author of Managing Transition who advocates for leaders to attend to the emotional transition of change), and John Kotter (author of Leading Change whose model begins with the importance of emotional engagement).

These theories are distilled into a practical action-learning model called the EQ Change Cycle™ that helps leaders guide and sustain change. The focus is on skillfully managing the emotions that either causes people to resist or embrace change. The process helps managers develop a commitment to shared vision of a better organisation, implement new initiatives while managing resistance, and then building clarity and alignment in a continuous improvement process.

Proposed Workshop Content

The Inside Path To Change™ is a 2-day workshop to enhance the effectiveness of organisational change. In an engaging, meaningful process, the program will target three primary objectives:

• Learn Six Seconds' EQ Change Cycle™ to assist in managing organisational change.
• Develop self-awareness to improve personal and leadership effectiveness in the change process.
• Increase the ability to manage the emotional components of change.

The EQ Change Cycle™ maps the change process through three stages: Engage (develop clarity and buy-in), Practice (implement change strategies), and Reflect (refine strategy and learn). The program assists employees and managers to use this model to both understand their own reactions to change, to communicate about change, to manage change, and to sustain change.

Key Learning Objectives

• Understand and learn how to apply the EQ Change Model.
• Understand the greatest obstacles to change are "People".
• Develop a heightened awareness of self and others.
• Understand the impact of emotions on decision-making and behaviour.
• Discover how one's own thought and behaviour patterns affect others and how emotions influence relationships.
• Understand what drives motivation in the workplace and in their lives.
• Manage effective relationships with others that build effective outcomes for self and internal partners.
• Manage change, overcome obstacles and difficulties (be positive and choose optimism).

What's Being Said

"Emotional intelligence isn't a luxury you can dispense with in tough times. It's a basic tool that, deployed with finesse, is key to professional success."

"This course gave me a chance to slow down and really pay attention to my own emotional patterns. This will help me as a leader, parent and friend."

"No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but in my experience it is actually more important in making a leader."

"In the fields I have studied, emotional intelligence is much more powerful than IQ in determining who emerges as a leader. IQ is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn't make you a star. Emotional Intelligence can."