The NY Times announced on August 17, 2009 (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/health/18psych.html?_r=1 ) that “The Army plans to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in emotional resiliency, military officials say.  … Usually taught in weekly 90-minute classes, the methods seek to defuse or expose common habits of thinking and flawed beliefs that can lead to anger and frustration — for example, the tendency to assume the worst.  (“My wife didn’t answer the phone; she must be with someone else.”)

The Army wants to train 1,500 sergeants by next summer to teach the techniques.

In an interview, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army’s chief of staff, said the $117 million program was an effort to transform a military culture that has generally considered talk of emotions to be so much hand-holding, a sign of weakness.”

If the Army thinks it is worth $117 million to train soldiers to have more emotional resilience, how about you, for your organization?  Do you think emotional resilience is worth the training time and cost?

I suggest you ask your employees if they often feel overwhelmed.  Layoffs have left many people who survived feeling exhausted as they have worked extremely hard to hang on to their jobs and performance level.  How many are discouraged in general about their state of affairs and future expectations?

With training, emotional resilience can be improved.  People can learn how to have more emotional intelligence in managing themselves at work.  Training with role plays, which the Army us using too, can help people reflect on their emotions and become more aware of them.  Greater self-awareness leads to the potential for greater self-management.

People learn to see themselves more clearly.  They can gauge their strengths and weaknesses better.  This helps them be more realistic about what they can do or not do in challenges.  They can choose better when to apply themselves or when to seek help from someone else.  And in many other ways, they learn to meet challenges with more resiliency.

Leaders can use performance management techniques to improve employee performance.  And emotional intelligence training can help employees to improve their performance on their own.

Eagle Alliance Executive Coaching, LLC offers training in both performance management and emotional intelligence.  For more information, Google our company or call our CEO, Bill Murray, at 919-419-9460.

Copyright © 2009, by William R. Murray, President of Eagle Alliance Executive Coaching, LLC.  Reprint rights granted to all venues so long as this article and by-line are printed intact with all links made live.