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Australian workplace training looks set for a shake-up following the launch today of a ground breaking training method, once the reserve of high stakes, mission critical government and security agencies.
Bringing together ‘Human Skills’ and ‘Behavioural Intelligence’ this new standard in workplace training combines world pioneers in research on emotion and interpersonal deception – San Francisco based The Paul Ekman Group with Australian training firm, New Intelligence.
“Research led by San Francisco State University Psychology Professor David Matsumoto and Dr. Paul Ekman found an over dependence on technology has reduced our innate human skills which are essential for effective face-to-face interactions”, said Steve Longford, Founder and Managing Director of New Intelligence.
“The impact of diminished people skills impinges on all levels of business from employee retention rates and absenteeism to the brand and customer experience.”
“There is potent demand for human skills to be rediscovered and a pressing need to ensure this training is relevant and behaviour changing,” said Steve.
Reading people to detect deceit or tension in the body, and dealing with emotion are two fundamental human skills that can be mastered.
The seven key emotions of anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise are universal, natural and are expressed primarily through the face according to San Francisco State University Psychology Professor David Matsumoto. He argues it is vital to interact on a regular basis to exercise our capability and capacity to observe, identify, articulate and use behaviour.
“Many courses wrongly advocate the removal of emotion from situations yet the latest research strongly disputes this technique because it is impossible to do,” said Steve Longford.
“Emotions are neither good nor bad but are either adaptive or maladaptive, meaning they can be transformed to prepare our bodies to act in specific ways,” he added.
“The only way to transform emotion and facilitate cognitive and behavioural change is to place participants in a training environment where new concepts learnt are put to the test in a mix of challenging, highly stimulating, somewhat confronting yet entertaining circumstances.”
“Relaxed training methods fail because employees return to the job with no significant change or improvement in function,” Steve claims.
“New Intelligence challenges and confronts participants with a view to restructure the old patterns of thinking which form barriers to change.”
New Intelligence owns the exclusive rights in Australia and New Zealand to train and develop people in the science and art of reading facial expressions and dealing with the emotions behind them – part of The Paul Ekman Groups’s world renowned training program, “Emotional Skills”.
The alliance between New Intelligence and The Paul Ekman Group is expected to result in future collaborations on training programs.