Being an effective leader—one with a high EQ (Emotional Intelligence)—means knowing yourself, having a good understanding of how your behavior influences that of others, and being able to relate to other people using approaches like empathy and attunement. The challenge is uncovering and learning about those outlooks and attributes that you may have but don’t even know you have.

Here's an activity I use to help people learn in a subtle way about their own personal beliefs and attributes.

This activity can be used as an intro to conflict resolution as well as an icebreaker prior to introducing personal assessment tools.

The Setup

• Select a short segment of video. It can come from a training video, a movie, or other source. A video I once used to generate lots of participation showed a company official describing the official support for a program set up to prevent human-caused accidents in aviation. My audience was pilots who were upgrading to the role of captain—the premier job in the airline industry.

• Introduce the video by informing participants about the purpose for watching. In my case, I explained that the purpose was to understand the company’s commitment to this safety program. In describing the purpose, avoid giving any specific instructions about what participants should look for, since this forms the essence of the activity following the video.

• Once the video has been shown, create two lists on a whiteboard or flip charts. Title the first one “What I Noticed,” and put this one up for use immediately. Title the second one “Interpretations" but delay putting it up until after you begin fielding observations.

The Breakout Discussion

In the breakout discussion, encourage participants to talk about what they observed in the video, and write it down on the first list. In my classes, there would often exist an atmosphere of cynicism and sarcasm with regard to "management." This often resulted in a particularly lively discussion.

When asked “what they noticed,” one of the first observations offered by participants often contains a judgment about the individual shown in the video, based on the participant’s personal opinion. With a minimum of discussion, it is easy to get agreement that this observation was not based on something the participant “noticed,” but rather was an interpretation based on that person's belief about the individual. At this point, you can create the “Interpretations” list.

The general tenor of the discussion will quickly reveal how often our personal beliefs result in interpretations rather than pure observations. Beyond noticing how someone gestures, intonation and other non-verbal cues are based upon interpretations about someone’s behavior rather than factual observations. The result can be very prejudicial, leading to barriers to communication that filter or block the exchange of information.

In the context of flying airplanes, it is imperative that crewmembers exchange information freely—especially information that may affect safety of flight—so understanding one’s own biases can be very helpful.

Another observation that came up when I conducted this activity was the occurrence of breaks in attention during low points in the presentation. This has high practical relevance as well, since a paradoxical aspect of aviation is that it has become so routine and safe that vigilance is hard to maintain at times.

For tips to effectively train your people and streamline your organization, and for other solutions to your staffing challenges, visit www.traininginabox.com [1]. Sign up for our free newsletter at www.quicktrainingsolutions.com [1] to make your HR training and development life easier. Ron Nielsen designs and delivers innovative and effective training solutions for businesses through NTG, his business development and training company.

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