May 5, 2021
Why EQ Courses Don’t Raise EQ And What You Can Do About It
EQ courses do not raise EQ.
They do however raise awareness of EQ.
Chances are that when you send an employee to an EQ or personal development workshop, they come back and rave about how amazing it was, and all the realisations they had about themselves! And you think — great, that EQ course is really effective at raising EQ.
Now fast forward six months. Are they demonstrating greater self-regulation? Greater social regulation? A change in demeanour?
No?
What happened?
Skilled facilitators and coaches can bring about realisations that we usually cannot come to on our own.
However, that is just opening a door. And of course, there is huge value in opening that door!
But now, to actually apply, we have to walk through that door!
In other words, to take that realisation and do something with it, requires us to work on developing a certain capacity. It is the capacity to notice our undesirable behaviour before it is about to manifest, and then, change it.
This requires us to feel into how we are feeling, think about how we are thinking, change both our thinking and our feeling, get to a more conducive state, and change our behaviour from that state.
All in one moment.
And that, requires years of practice. It requires diligence. It is painful and it is easy to give up. It shows us what we do not want to see. So, it requires support from someone who has walked the talk. Something most practitioners do not tell you or do not know to tell you.
So, close the loop. Next time, you send someone to an EQ course:
- Work out what changes they expect as a result, in a concrete way.
- After the workshop, have a conversation about what they learnt at the workshop.
- Work out the support they need to apply it.
- Arrange the support.
- Provide means for regular check in.
