APPENDIX 2

Emotional Intelligence Training

EXERCISE 1—Emotional Self-Awareness: Confessors and Listeners (Based on Lynn, 2002)

The aim of this exercise is to improve your awareness and control of your own emotional responses, and the extent to which you produce emotional responses in others.

You need to pair off with a partner. In the first round, one of you will play the confessor while the other plays the listener. After the first round you will be asked to reflect on the content of the interaction.

Confessor

Think of a real personal weakness that you possess, for example, being prone to behaviors such as being short-tempered, domineering, too yielding, late, unreliable, disorganized, blaming others, obstructive, not eating properly, smoking, drinking, not taking exercise, sulking, etc.

The weakness should be real and significant enough to have some emotional feelings attached to it for you, but not so serious as would open a can of worms and give rise to the need for several sessions of psychotherapy.

You should then explain your weakness to your partner, like an admission and a bit of an explanation or guess as to the cause, for example: “I can be obstructive at times when I could be more helpful—perhaps it's when I'm feeling low and that people don't show me any respect,” or “I come in late sometimes because I think ‘why should I bother about doing a good job when I should be paid more.’”

After the short interaction, you will need to reflect and comment on it.

Listener

Firstly you are a listener, but more than that you are a CRITIC. You are about to listen to the confessor talking about a personal weakness. Your role is to demonstrate giving the confessor a negative critical reaction to their admission (don't go mad—we don't want any tears, please). Just a few sentences of blame, judgment, and an uncaring reaction (imagine the worst teacher you had at school and how they used to treat kids who messed up or misbehaved, or imagine a bullying boss you've known).

After the short interaction, you will need to reflect and comment on it.

TUTOR'S NOTES

Emotional Self-Awareness: Confessors and Listeners

The aim of this exercise is to improve your awareness and control of your own emotional responses, and the extent to which you produce emotional responses in others. You need to organize yourself with a partner into a pair. In the first round, one of you will play the confessor while the other plays the listener. After each round, you will be asked to reflect on the content of the interaction.

1. Ask pairs to decide who will be the confessor and listener for the first round.
2. Give out exercise sheets. Allow a few minutes for people to read through the instructions sheet and the additional personal reflections sheet.
3. Then start the role play for 5 minutes per round.
4. After 5 minutes of the first round of role play, ask the participants to stop and, without discussing with their partners, complete their personal reflections sheet. Ask participants to pause and think for a moment and try to consider how they are feeling as a result of what has just happened in the role play. Ask individuals to try to record their actual feelings.
5. Now ask participants to swap roles. After the second role play and an additional 5 minutes, ask them to stop and complete the self-reflection questionnaire again.
6. Come back to the large group and discuss in a plenary session.

Debrief

1.Emphasize that negative emotional responses to all sorts of situations, behaviors, and circumstances in work (and personal) contexts are always being generated and that they can often influence how we respond to people or the decisions we make, as well as our general moods.

2.Ask the participants about their emotional responses in the first round. Get their emotional responses on a flip chart.

3.Ask participants if they are aware of why they felt the way they did. How useful were these emotional responses? Record these on a flip chart and discuss in the large group.

4.Ask participants if they saw any signs of how their part was feeling, through their body language or other means of nonverbal communication. List these on flip chart. Discuss in the large group how we can often reveal how we are feeling (and our thoughts and attitudes) unconsciously through the facial and bodily signals we communicate.

NEXT: Understanding Emotions

Tutor: I want us to think about how our emotional responses are sometimes connected to the events that trigger them. This is important because it can help us in thinking about how better to manage our own emotions and other people's.

5.Firstly, spend a few minutes thinking about a specific situation in which you regretted acting the way that you did in a work context. Spend a few minutes thinking about what you were feeling at the time and how you reacted. Think about how your emotions and behaviors were connected.

Tutor: Now give a brief presentation input on how irrational beliefs shape our emotional responses. This is important for understanding how emotions can develop.

6.Ask participants to write down whether there were any irrational beliefs going on. Ask whether individuals would be prepared to share some of the responses. Next ask participants whether they can identify what their beliefs were that may have caused their reactions. Try to identify both rational and irrational beliefs.

Rational beliefs are those which are healthy, productive, and consistent with social reality. They generally consist of preferences, desires, and wants.

Irrational beliefs are rigid, dogmatic, unhealthy, maladaptive, and mostly get in the way of our efforts to achieve our goals. IBs are comprised of demands, musts, and shoulds.

The goal is to uncover hidden demands (shoulds), awfulizing, global, self-downing, and low frustration tolerance.

Emotional Self-Awareness Reflections

1. What were your feelings during the role play?
2. Why do you think you felt that way?
3. Were you aware of how your body was responding while you were feeling in the way you stated above? What was your partner was feeling?