© Steve Whiteford 2021 If you are a ghost-er, therefore a ghost – unlike a Halloween ghost you’re probably not frightening at all. Like most ghosts people report having experienced, you’re just an annoying practitioner of “now you see me, now you don’t.” Ghosting is akin to Gaslighting because it’s a denial, a charade. And…
© Steve Whiteford 2021 Identity and ego are good things. They are how we uniquely define ourselves and how we relate to the world. In best-case, we use them to accurately enact our values and allow us to function effectively in the world. But it’s a problem when we are strongly committed to an inflexible…
© Steve Whiteford 2021 Consider Scrooge. We all have an internal Scrooge. Some aspect of our values, beliefs, or behavior that is driven by a lack of self-awareness, possibly repressed responses to unresolved events in our lives. Working with emotional intelligence requires an openness to incremental self-awareness. To acknowledge the visitations of feeling throughout the…
Listening to Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret, I was happy to be reminded of Fundamental Attribution Error in his discussion of Foundational Regret.
Between Daniel Pink and Daniel Kahneman I’ve had Cognitive Bias on my mind. When you really explore it, I think you’ll find Cognitive Bias begins with and is very difficult to separate from feeling. For instance, when we make a Fundamental Attribution Error, our emotions want to reject responsibility, or when we fault someone else’s…
Dealing with disagreement feels like conflict – having an opposing position, experiencing discomfort, and a desire to be right or win. The intensity of disagreements can vary greatly based on the stakes. Sometimes disagreements are just differences of preferences or result from unexamined interactions and habitual moods. From “I don’t like the way you did…
The pursuit of Emotional Intelligence is not for the faint of heart. The foundational skill for its pursuit is self-awareness. Like peeling an onion, it’s apt to result in tears and involves shucking many layers. I remember several years ago when a friend was redesigning my web, I stopped by to see how it was…
©Steve Whiteford 2022 I had a fantastic time presenting the Skills of Applied Emotional Intelligence to Jeff Quade’s St. Edwards business class yesterday. Of course, I attribute some of this to Jeff’s brilliant and accessible style as a professor and seasoned Organizational Development professional. As a Boomer, I certainly don’t remember being as bright, kind,…
©Steve Whiteford, 2022 I am concerned about how emotional intelligence continues to be characterized by terminology that can promote emotional bypassing. Despite all of the great research and writing that has been done on the power of embracing emotions, and having a strong emotional vocabulary, I still notice resistance to the foundational skill of emotional…
1. In his life-changing book, Love + Work, Marcus Buckingham rightfully declares “Each activity, each interaction is emotionally charged, either positive or negative. Each moment hits you, you can take it in, and it either lifts you up a little or drags you down a little. No moment leaves you at zero.” Although not new, having him make…