Social Intelligence (Weekend Program)

📅  Dates:

  • TBC

📍  Location: Amsterdam

🏷️  Price: € 550

Social Intelligence

You might think that successful people often become happy, that happiness is the consequence of success. Actually not! It is another way around! Recent research shows that happy people often become successful (Van Dam, 2015). Success follows happiness! And one of the things that have a huge impact on one’s happiness level is good relationships with people at work and in personal life! But how can you achieve that?

Social intelligence is the capacity to communicate and form relationships with empathy and assertiveness. It comes from knowing yourself and exercising proper emotional management. We can say it is closely linked to emotional intelligence, but it is not exactly the same thing. 

Social intelligence is essential for unlocking the skills of effective communication, dialogue, and teamwork to create an optimal and productive work environment. Until recently, social intelligence was a priority that few people had, mostly because they already had the right mindset for it and picked up the associated skills along the way, but training to develop social intelligence is relatively new.

We invite you to join the Social Intelligence program to develop your social intelligence and apply your new knowledge and skills in daily life! Understand other people better and communicate more effectively! 

The program will be especially useful for those who want to create a healthy environment at work but the material you will learn can be also applicable in personal life. New knowledge and skills will help you to build effective relationships with colleagues, partners, and customers. Everyone is unique and sees the world in their own way. In order to understand others, you should learn to see the world from their eyes. That is where social intelligence can help you! 

Do you have difficulties in communication with colleagues? Do you experience stress at work due to unhealthy relationships there? Social intelligence can help you there. We cannot always choose our colleagues but we can choose how to build relationships with them. Your stress at work might affect all other areas of your life but improving the social climate in relation to colleagues can change the situation.

The program will allow you to improve your communication skills, understand better behaviour of other people and build better relationships at work and in private life. 

After participation in the program you will be able to: 

  • Build more effective and strong relationships at work and in private life
  • Understand better the behaviour of other people
  • Decrease your stress level by being able to avoid complications during social interactions with other people
  • Adjust your own communication style at work if you feel the need to do so
  • Acquire the skill to allow you to see others in a new way
  • Identify and remove obstacles that you might face during communication with people
  • Increase your motivation and efficiency at work by being able to build more enjoyable relationships with colleagues
  • Develop your leadership skills by understanding how you can influence other people
  • Work more effectively in a team having better knowledge about the reasons for the behaviour of other members of the team
  • Obtain great networking opportunities with other people who are interested in social intelligence and with whom you can keep in touch in the future and measure your progress together 

Program

In a society where social relationships are a crucial component of everyday life, having enduring and enjoyable social ties not only promotes happiness but also better health. The importance of social intelligence is substantial and growing, providing individuals with the potential to better themselves and their relationships with others (Zautra, 2015). 

Social intelligence is a major building block of developing and maintaining social relationships (Belton, 2016).

Today, learning social intelligence is indispensable because it is the best resource to build and maintain a good work culture and to protect jobs in an era of increasing automation. Development of social intelligence leads to success at work in addition to a better work atmosphere and productivity (Zaccaro, 1991). Workers with higher levels of social intelligence are better prepared for a complex work environment which is especially important in today’s VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) world. They are more flexible in their responses and more aware of the various demands and requirements of those situations.   

Social intelligence is of particular importance for leaders. It is not a secret that followers mirror their leaders. Part of a leader’s job is to develop human capital (Goleman, 2008). Social intelligence can help you to develop a leadership style that will allow you to communicate effectively with colleagues. 

Relationships you have with other people have a huge impact on the quality of your life. Relationships at work in most cases play a crucial role in your career development. You might be very knowledgeable in the field where you work and be able to do the work better than any of your colleagues but if you are unable to build effective relationships with your colleagues, your career opportunities within this company might be limited. Social intelligence can help you here! 

Social intelligence manages the required abilities for effective communication based on empathy, self-knowledge, listening, and reading of emotions.

Nowadays at the workplace, you often have to complete a series of non-routine tasks that often requires social intelligence, complex critical thinking, and creative problem-solving (Garcia-Bulle, 2019) 

Because our behaviour creates and develops neural networks, we are not necessarily prisoners of our genes and our early childhood experiences. You can change if you are ready to put in the effort (Goleman, 2008). And the tools that you will learn during the course will help you! 

Moreover, according to the research, higher levels of social intelligence will allow you to live happier, better cope with daily and major life stressors, protect from an incidence of some diseases, and live a longer life (Cacioppo, 2015). And at the same time, lower levels of social intelligence are associated with the development of depression, anxiety, and loneliness (Faust, 1985).

The Content of the Program

IQ is on a large part pre-programmed. Social intelligence is mostly developed during life. 

Is having a high level of social intelligence means being always nice? Not really! Of course, being positive and polite is essential. However, the true art of a person with a high level of social intelligence is being able to bring critique and express disagreement without damaging relationships. 

In this block, we will discuss what is social intelligence, how one can develop it and what role it can play in daily life. 

The objectives of this block are: 

  • Giving you the idea about social intelligence and how it can help you in your daily life
  • Providing you with information about the sources that you can use for learning more about social intelligence after the program
  • Showing you how social intelligence training programs can improve the way individuals navigate their social life

In this part of the program, you will learn about the various abilities.

The list of abilities includes:

  • Verbal and non-verbal fluency
    Conversational skills are the most basic form of social intelligence. Verbal and non-verbal expressions are the primary platforms for sending any message. The use of the right words, the ideal tone, and clear intention underlies the first step to effective communication
  • Knowledge of social rules and roles
    When you interact with a group, knowing their social rules, customs, and idiosyncrasies is a fundamental skill for socially intelligent people. This facilitates interaction with individuals who belong to different social groups, like people of different ages, countries, religions, or cultural identities.
  • Listening skills
    Active listening is instrumental in the development of social intelligence. It helps to connect with other people, prevents conflict, and enables learning through dialogue. This contributes significantly to personal growth.
  • Understanding how other people’s emotions work
    Understanding what triggers people’s emotions (either negatively or positively) is a key component in the exercise of empathy. This competency enables communication that takes into consideration the attributes and sensibilities of other people, which makes the message authentic and effective.
  • Playing social roles efficiently
    This ability allows people to adapt to different social environments. Having a clear idea of what’s expected of us in a variety of different settings reduces stress in any situation and enables more constructive interactions.
  • Self-Image and impression management
    This is the ability to present ourselves in a way that connects with others without stretching too far from our natural personalities. The objective is to maintain a sincere demeanour that appeals to others, shows empathy, and reinforces our idea of self.

Objectives of the block are:

  • Giving an overview of the subjects that can be learnt within the studies of social intelligence
  • Provide information about the methods of social intelligence that you can apply at work and in private life

You will learn about the ways in which you can apply social intelligence:

  • Development of leadership
  • Working in a team
  • Effective communication at work and in a private field
  • Improvement of argumentation skills
  • Development of public speaking skills

 

Objectives of the block are: 

  • Providing an overview of various fields of social and business life where methods of social intelligence can be applied
  • Offering you the tools that you can use to develop your skills in a particular field

Here you will practice what you have learnt. We will offer you various exercises where you can practice skills of social intelligence and see how you can use them to communicate with others.  

Objectives of the block are:

  • Practising the theory that you have learnt
  • Helping you to assess your own skills of social intelligence
  • Proving a safe environment to make mistakes and learn from them
  • Make sure you leave the course equipped with the knowledge and being able to use it in practice

The time-table for each study day:

9.00-10.30 – Session

10.30-11.00 – Coffee-break

11.00-12.30 – Session

12.30-14.00 – Lunch

14.00-15.30 – Session

15.30-16.00 – Coffee-break

16.00-17.00 – Session

Accommodation

Accommodation is not provided during this course.

Dates and Price

Dates*Price
Weekends: 13 – 14 April 2024€ 550

The price includes:

  • Program: 8 full study days on Saturday and Sunday
  • Coffee-breaks and lunches

Apply

Please email us via netherlandsinstitute@gmail.com

Please indicate the “Social Intelligence Weekend Program” in the subject and provide the following information in the body of the email:

  • Full name
  • Date of birth
  • Telephone number
  • Dates of the course
  • The reasons why you would like to join the program and your expectations
  • Other wishes

No deadline! You can apply at any time.
Applicants of any age are welcome to join.

The position is only open for residents of the Netherlands.

Questions

In case of any questions regarding the program – feel free to send us an e-mail – or call us +31 30 879 50 55

List of references: 

  • An examination of the association between social relationships and depression in early adolescence. Faust J, Baum CG, Forehand R. Journal Applications of Dev Psychol. 1985.
  • Can we learn to treat one another better? A test of social intelligence curriculum. Zautra EK, Zautra AJ, Gallardo C, Velasco L.. PLoS. 2015.
  • De verandering begint bij jou. Nick van Dam Eileen M. Rogers. 2015.
  • Leadership and social intelligence: linking social perspective and behavioral flexibility to leader effectiveness. Zaccaro SJ, Gilbert JA, Thor KK, Mumford MD. Leadership. 1991.
  • Loneliness: clinical import and interventions. Cacioppo S, Grippo AJ, London S, Goossens L, Cacioppo JT. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2015.
  • Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership. Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis. Harvard Business Review. 2008
  • Social Intelligence. Daniel A. Belton, Ashley M. Ebbert, Frank J. Infurna. Arizona State University. 2016.
  • What is social intelligence and why it should be taught at schools? Observatory of Educational Innovation. Sofia Garcia-Bulle. 2019. https://observatory.tec.mx/edu-news/social-intelligence