» Sparklers and gingerbread

… from emotional intelligence at work

Newsletter 59 : 4 november 2011

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Greetings
Welcome to our newsletter. As ever, we like to offer a change from other newsletters which can demand an awful lot of reading.

Our YouTube channel video of the week

This week, on our YouTube channel, in this frank and honest interview Kay McMahon talks about how she has been affected by stress at work in the past and how she now uses that experience to help other people avoid it (dur 7:28). Please visit and subscribe – and do let us know what you think.

Quotation of the week

The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Eden Phillpotts, science-fiction writer born 4 November 1862 (it says here)

Video of the week

In this fascinating TED talk, Paul Zak talks about trust, trustworthiness and morality and discusses how trust is generated. Worth waiting to the final minute to discover his recipe for increased happiness – and his explanation of why it works. (dur 16:35)

Incidentally, if you have difficulty watching videos at work, let us have your personal email address and we’ll send the newsletter there. Absolute confidentiality assured. We don’t pass email addresses to anyone.

Emotional intelligence article of the week

In search of the good enough leader. What is ‘good enough’? The thing about ‘good enough’ is that it contains the word ‘good’. Not ‘average’, not ‘compromise’. And ‘good enough’ is a valuable concept because it guards against the perfectionism which is so often a trap preventing us from moving forward. Lonnie Pacelli discusses what you do when you’re good enough in this article. It’s a bit biased towards the behavioural, but contains some interesting thoughts.

Music video of the week

Nina Simone delivers a cautionary tale. Actually that facetiousness is not worthy of a great song, delivered with studied understatement by the classically trained Simone accompanying herself on piano in a way which only adds to the emotional power (dur 5:29)

Extra quotation of the week

Contact light.

Buzz Aldrin (First words spoken on the moon, when Apollo 11 landed, 24 July 1969 Earth time)

Government grants for leadership and management development

If you run a business or social enterprise and you want it to be more successful, there’s likely to be money from the government for you to go towards a coaching programme with us. Take advantage of this year’s Leadership and Management Advisory Service scheme. Our programmes are tailored for your business’s needs and consist of nine 90 minute sessions which will enable you to take great strides in your business. Qualifying businesses get £1000 matched funding from the government towards one of our programmes.

All contributions welcome.

If you have been, thank you for reading.
Kay and Jeremy