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… from emotional intelligence at work

Newsletter 3 : august 2008

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Welcome to our newsletter. We promise to keep it brief and relevant!

Quotations of the week

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
William James, American philosopher and psychiatrist (1842-1910)

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1860)

Training course of the week

Turn stress into success

Like the weather, stress is an inevitable part of life.
Unlike the weather, stress is largely, if not entirely under our control.
In business stress can be very damaging, not only to the individual(s) but to the company as a whole.
We believe that many people tolerate it because they believe they can’t do anything about it.
Or if they do believe they can alleviate it, they don’t know how.
This programme tackles stress head on. It shows you how to reduce it, remove it,
and, even better, how to stop it happening in the first place.
And, as a bonus, the techniques you’ll learn are equally applicable in your personal lives.

(1) 28 October Dealing with difficult people
Other people are a major source of stress – whether they’re colleagues, clients or other road users.
This session will explain why other people can be difficult and show you how a changed approach
can work wonders.

(2) 5 November Prevent yourself being stressed
Prevention is better than cure. This session will teach you how to ‘nip it in the bud’ and even
how not to find some things stressful.

(3) 13 November The secret to having it all
OK, so now you’re equipped to deal with stress, but your work situation isn’t conducive to
maintaining that calm, stress-free personality. This session helps you bring greater
fulfilment and enjoyment to your working life.

Trainers are Jeremy Marchant and Kay McMahon.
Venue is the Watershed, Bristol

From the web

Sites, videos and blogs more or less relevant to emotional intelligence at work

How to tell when a relationship is over

A ninety second tour de force

Puzzle of the week

Last time we posed this puzzle (found in Derren Brown‘s excellent book, Tricks of the mind):

“I present you with four cards, guaranteeing that each has a letter on one side and a number on the other.
I tell you that there is a rule: ‘whenever there is an A on one side, the other side has a 3’.
You see an A, a 3, a B and a 7.
What is the smallest number of cards you need to turn over – and what are they? – to prove or disprove this rule?”

The answer is A and 7, though most people answer A and 3, or just A.
You have to turn over the A because doing so will directly test the rule.
However, you don’t need to turn over the 3, because the rule implies that, while all As have 3s on the reverse, 3s need not have As: a 3 can have an X on the back without violating the rule about As.
On the other hand, to test the rule about As, you need to check the 7 doesn’t have an A on the back (remember every card has a letter on one side and a number on the reverse).
Of course the B is a red herring. Since B is neither A or 3 it is irrelevant to the issue at hand.

The learning from the puzzle is that, when asked to test the truth of a proposition, given some evidence, people do just that, without checking whether the evidence demonstrates the truth of the opposite. More logically, the rule “As have 3s” also includes the rule “(not A)s have (not 3)s”, which also has to be tested if the evidence allows it.