Understanding Emotional Intelligence and its
significance better
Emotional intelligence (EQ) helps drive success, work effectiveness, healthy
relationships -- even good health and quality of life. Some 40 students from Engineering
Science Programme (ESP), Global Engineering Programme (GEP) and Design-Centric
Programme (DCP) learnt all about EQ and its importance at a boot camp in UTown on
21 September 2013.
The half-day bootcamp comprising a workshop, short lectures and activities, was
facilitated by Ms Sue McNamara from Six Seconds, an international network of EQ
professionals. She introduced students to a framework structured on three important
points:
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Self-awareness (know yourself): Clearly seeing what you feel and do.
Self-management (choose yourself): Doing what you mean to do instead of
reacting “on autopilot”.
Self-direction (give yourself): Doing it for a reason. Developing empathy and
pursuing goals will help you put your vision and mission into action.
Ms McNamara explained the meaning of “Six Seconds” to participants. Our brain
comprises three parts: the brain stem (which creates the automatic responses such as
breathing and heart movements), the limbic system (where emotions reside) and the
cortical structure (where thinking happens). It only takes 0.25 seconds for the limbic
system to respond whereas it takes 6 seconds for the cortical brain to respond.
Therefore, in order to avoid a short-circuit respond (which is normally disastrous), Ms
McNamara suggested counting 10 backwards in Spanish before responding to allow the
cortical brain to make the decision.
Interestingly, our brain may be trained to recognize patterns. She demonstrated this
point by getting students to throw rubber ducks and balls to one another in a prescribed
manner. Guess what, everyone could catch these and throw them to different partners
rather easily after the brain has been trained.
This bootcamp is the first of a series of EQ initiatives helmed by the Institute of
Leadership (IEL). So be on the lookout for them.