This is a simple exercise that anyone can use to measure his self-awareness. Simply think about answering a series of questions and through that become more aware of how you feel and how others feel about you.

This simple yet powerful exercise helps the delegates to understand several concepts all at once; communication skills, cooperation, patience and how to manage small contributions to achieve an effective results with the correct balance.

This exercise is particularly suitable for team building courses and is remembered well by delegates well after the course due to the nature of the activity and its simplicity.

Knowing how we feel is part of our self-awareness. The more we are aware of our feelings, the better we can control our behaviours and understand those of others. This exercise helps delegates to become more aware of their emotions and learn to describe them. It also encourages them to think of ways to get to a target emotion, such as happiness.

The purpose of this exercise is to help delegates understand the concept of crowd contagion. This is particularly applicable to business meetings where emotional comments can easily lead to a suboptimal meeting. Crowd contagion captures the idea that emotions are contagious and if not controlled come to dominate a group meeting. If one person becomes angry, others are likely to become angry soon as the emotion is passed from one person to the next.

Some leaders seem to be too controlling. They want to exert their power and position on others to get them do what they want. On the other hand, some leaders seem to understand others and are much friendlier and open to new ideas. They seem to be much more logical and are viewed much more positively than those who are too controlling.

Research shows that those who are too controlling of others and their environment are usually insecure. Their insecurity is expressed by forcing others to comply and they see this as the only way to bring balance to their world.

This exercise helps delegates to become more aware of this concept and learn how to ask questions from themselves on how they treat others.

This simple exercise allows team members to share important information about their life with each other. The aim is to gain a better understanding of why people behave in a certain way and to help putting team members' actions into perspective.

The ability to act allows you to adopt different roles as you see fit. To be good at emotional intelligence, it is very important to understand emotions and be able to express appropriate emotions when needed, perhaps to sympathise with others or establish rapport.

We always recognise actors as those who are capable in presenting a range of emotions in their roles from sadness to happiness to anger. They seem to be able to switch from one emotion to the next at ease, while their facial expression shows every tiny detail for that emotion. How do they do it?

This exercise is based on classic acting exercises used in acting schools to increase students’ sensory awareness. Rather than asking students to cry, or to show some strong emotion, they are encouraged to think of all the sensory information present in any typical everyday activity. By becoming more aware of these sensory data, they can learn to improvise and imitate down to the tiniest detail.

For best results, you may need to give a pre-course assignment to delegates so they can prepare and rehearse for their acting which takes place during the course.

This is a useful exercise in acting. Use this exercise to help people adopt certain roles or learn how to imitate target behaviours. Acting and understanding how an ideal role feels like can help delegates to get to those targets. For example, being able to act like a manager can significantly help people to eventually become a manager. Not only acting like a manager helps the person to see what it takes to be a manager, others will start to respond appropriately and will be more receptive when that person is elevated to the managerial level.

This exercise helps with various useful roles provided as mission cards. You can use the exercise as a template for other useful roles or choose based on the content of your course.

A leader’s performance is defined by how he or she leads others. For others to follow a leader, it is critical for them to know that they are valued. The sense of significance and knowing that what they do has a benefit to the overall objective is a significant motivation. Hence, leaders must actively and routinely take steps to show that they value their team members and that team members’ effort are well appreciated.

This exercise helps delegates to learn how to achieve this as leaders. It encourages specific actions on their behalf as opposed to vague strategies, so that they know precisely what to do for each member of their team.

Self-awareness and self-motivation are critical competencies within emotional intelligence. Everyone must actively take steps to become better in these areas. A great way to achieve this is by systematically reviewing your own performance and thinking of what you are good at. This positive thinking can reinforce your confidence and boost your motivation. This simple, yet powerful exercise helps you to achieve this.

Remember, admiring yourself is not about being arrogant or feeding your ego. It is about knowing and appreciating what you are good at so you can inspire others around you and help them to grow as you grow further. This is particularly important in leadership roles.

You can provide this exercise during training or provide it as a pre or post-course assignment so delegates have more time to spend and reflect on their life and behaviour. If you run this as a pre-course assignment, you can ask them to bring their responses and then initiate a group discussion and encourage delegates to get inspired by each other.

This is a simple yet powerful exercise on emotional intelligence which helps delegates to engage all their senses while thinking about what they or others around them experience emotionally.

Knowing how to talk on the phone is critical these days as a lot of communication takes place on the phone. Many times, you may need to respond to unusual requests or remarks and think on the spot so you can respond as diplomatically as possible. For example, how would you answer if someone asks you for a favour that you feel you cannot provide while not wanting to appear difficult or cold. As an example for the business world, suppose a customer wants something you don’t have or offer, how can you reply in a positive way to preserve the customer and not disappoint them.

In this exercise, delegates will go through a number of roleplays to practice challenging scenarios.

You can use this exercise to get a group of people practice brainstorming and participate in constructive discussions. Delegates will go through a case study which can be applicable to just about anyone while still creating complex challenges. This exercise is also flexible in the choice of brainstorming method used or alternatively you can leave it to the delegates to decide. For example, you can use this exercise after explaining a particular brainstorming method such as mind mapping, six hats, Delphi method, etc., and then evaluate the performance of the delegates based on what you have discussed in the course. This exercise is ideal if all delegates are from the same organisation, though you can also use it when delegates are not from the same place.

This is an exercise in communication with the aim to increase awareness of body language and non-verbal communications.

This exercise uses a shock tactic to motivate people and get them to recognize the importance of the time we have in our life. It encourages them to think about life as a whole and draw up their mission statement sooner than later.