Ambulatory surgery centers are often considered low-cost alternatives to expensive in-hospital care, but a new report from Kaiser Health News and USA Today raises questions about the safety of ASCs and the regulations that govern their practices.
Here are five things to know about the report.
1. The report claims the proliferation of increasingly complex surgeries at ASCs has shone a light on facilities’ poor preparation for emergency scenarios. ASCs are required to have patient transfer agreements to local hospitals in the event of an emergency, complying with state and federal regulations. The report cited examples of patients who were transferred from ASCs in rural areas where hospitals were up to 30 miles away and were unable to access the emergency care needed.
2. ASCs are a surgical site option for elective procedures for patients who are good candidates for the outpatient setting, typically otherwise healthy patients without comorbidities. Not every patient is a good candidate for outpatient surgery; those with pre-existing conditions are better suited for the hospital.
Preexisting conditions can complicate even the most routine surgeries, and the report claims over 260 patients have died since 2013 after procedures at ASCs. Though federal regulations require ASCs keep resuscitation equipment on hand in case of emergencies, a number of the patient deaths detailed in the article took place in facilities that skirted these regulations. However, the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association issued a statement March 2 in response to the article, reporting more than 200 million successful procedures have been performed in ASCs across the country over the same five year period.
3. The report cites examples of patients who felt hurried out of ASCs and dying on the way home.
“The stories these reporters tell are indeed tragic and will no doubt be deeply concerning to readers. Unfortunately, the article fails to provide a comparison to other sites of care and make clear that medical errors occur across all sites of care, including hospitals, and typically at much higher rates than in ASCs,” said Rebecca Craig, RN, MBA, the CEO of Fort Collins, Colo.-based Harmony Surgery Center and Peak Surgical Management.
4. In the third quarter of 2017, the most recent data available, the rate of all cause emergency department visits within one day of ASC discharge was 0.69 percent, according to statistics from ASC Quality.
5. Physicians are allowed to have ownership in ASCs, collecting a percentage of the facility fee for each case. The article’s authors suggest this ownership may influence their decision to direct cases to the center , but the laws governing ASC referrals vary by state, with some states barring surgeon referrals to any ASC in which they or a family member maintain a financial interest.
Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare divested a Chicago-area hospital and sold its minority interest in four Texas hospitals.
Tenet completed the sale of MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, Ill., and its local physician practices to Chicago-based Loyola Medicine, which is part of Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health. MacNeal Hospital includes 374 acute care beds, a 12-bed rehabilitation unit, a 25-bed inpatient skilled nursing facility and a 68-bed behavioral health program.
“We look forward to serving a greater number of patients through our expanded delivery network, thanks to the resources, providers and value-added care made possible by adding MacNeal Hospital and its physicians to our system,” Larry M. Goldberg, president and CEO of Loyola Medicine and Trinity Health’s Illinois region, said in a statement.
Tenet also announced the completion of several other deals on Feb. 2. The company sold its minority interest in Baylor Scott & White-Centennial in Frisco, Texas, and Baylor Scott & White-Lake Pointe in Rowlett, Texas, to Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health. The company transferred its minority interest in Baylor Scott & White-Sunnyvale (Texas) to Texas Health Ventures Group, which is a joint venture between Tenet’s United Surgical Partners International subsidiary and Baylor Scott & White Health. Tenet also sold its minority interest in Baylor Scott & White Medical Center-White Rock in Dallas to Pipeline Health, a hospital management company based in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
Tenet ended the fourth quarter of 2017 with a net loss of $230 million, compared to a net loss of $79 million in the same period of the year prior. To improve its financial position, Tenet launched a $250 million cost reduction initiative last year, which involves divesting hospitals in non-core markets and cutting 2,000 jobs, or about 2 percent of the company’s workforce.
Tenet’s hospital divestiture plan is expected to yield more than $1 billion of proceeds. In the first quarter of 2018, Tenet received $550 million of cash proceeds from the divestiture of MacNeal Hospital, the sale of its minority interest in the Texas hospitals and the sale of two hospitals in Philadelphia.
A survey of 100 healthcare executives found that most of them are seeing ROI on value-based contracts, but investments in EHRs are not sufficient to manage those contracts.
The Sage Growth Partners study found most respondents were not satisfied with their EHRs’ “ability to help them manage core functions necessary to succeed in (value-based care) — such as care coordination, risk stratification, decision support and patient engagement.”
About two-thirds of respondents said EHRs are not delivering promises concerning lower costs, better population health management and improved patient and physician satisfaction.
Dive Insight:
Healthcare providers are increasingly looking to EHRs and third-party population health management solutions to help them with value-based care.
A recent Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) survey found that value-based payment programs doubled since 2015. Nearly three-quarters of executives in the HFMA survey said their organizations achieved positive financial results, including return on investment, from value-based payment programs.
Although providers expect value-based programs to continue to increase, the new Sage Growth Partners survey found dissatisfaction with EHRs and concern they are not helping enough in value-based care. The report found 64% of respondents said EHRs haven’t delivered many critical value-based tools. At least 60% of respondents said they are looking for value-based solutions beyond EHRs.
The survey included a finding that will likely get the attention of EHR and population health management vendors — half of respondents said they are somewhat or highly likely to switch population health management vendors over the next three years.
Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents have had an EHR for at least three years. About half also have third-party population health management solutions. These findings offer a glimpse into the dissatisfaction as well as opportunity in population health management.
The executives surveyed said there are issues with interoperability, addressing social determinants of health, patient engagement, stakeholder coordination and risk analytics. They also spoke of health systems having trouble aggregating and using data from numerous EHR systems and other data sources.
These issues have led half to two-thirds of healthcare executives turning to population health management or do-it-yourself solutions beyond EHRs “to compensate for the lack of these capabilities within their EHRs.” Many of those executives said population health management solutions enabled their value-based success. Those successes are also coming at a lower cost than the investments in EHRs.
The study authors predicted more healthcare executives will look beyond EHRs in the coming years to help with value-based contracting. They said “suboptimal tools” that manage care and costs for populations won’t be enough in coming years.
“As (value-based care) reaches the tipping point, and as they take on programs with greater risk and greater complexity, they will need to continue looking beyond their EHRs to get the functionality they need,” the authors wrote.
Atrium Health, formerly known as Carolinas HealthCare System, announced Friday that its planned merger with UNC Health has been suspended because of disagreements between the two systems on which would control the combined company, The Charlotte Observer first reported. The now-stalled deal would have created a system with more than 50 hospitals and 100,000 employees.
Although consolidation among hospital systems has ramped up over the past year, the failure of the two groups to come to terms shows it’s not always a smooth path.
Dive Insight:
The merger plan was announced in September, but the deal now appears to be going nowhere.
“In our letter sent to UNC Health Care today, we informed them that while we have not been able to reach an agreement, our respect for UNC Health Care, its team and UNC Health Care’s accomplishments has grown through this process,” said an Atrium Health statement also obtained by Healthcare Dive.
Merger mania is still clearly evident in the industry, however.
Advocate Health Care and Aurora Health Care recently moved closer to merging to form the 10th largest nonprofit healthcare system in the U.S. after receiving regulatory approval from both the Federal Trade Commission and Illinois.
The mergers are evidence that health systems continue to search for ways to capture economies of scale and cut costs as hospitals face lower reimbursements and patient volumes. But despite the trend, combining massive health systems can be difficult with regulatory and other challenges.
In a new financial report, Geisinger Health System reported a gain of nearly $200 million in net income to $324.9 million for the first half of fiscal year 2018 compared to the previous year, for an excess margin of 9%.
Operating income for the first six months was up from $51.9 million a year ago to $61.2 million in the current fiscal year and net revenue increased 8.1% to $3.3 billion. However, Geisinger’s operating margin dropped from 3% for the first three months of the fiscal year to 1.8% through half the year.
One area of concern for the integrated healthcare system was its Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plan. Geisinger Health Plan (GHP) struggled after the company didn’t get $11 million in cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments following President Donald Trump’s decision to stop payments in October.
Dive Insight:
Geisinger’s net revenue growth is connected to an increase in net patient service revenue after the provision for bad debts of nearly 5% and an increase in premium revenue of 11%.
“Net patient service revenue benefited from the realization of growth plans centered on market share growth and the opportunistic capture of high-acuity, clinical service volumes. Premium revenue benefited primarily from rate increases,” Geisinger said in the report.
ACA marketplace volatility, namely the end of CSR payments, as well as higher utilization affected GHP. The company believes the higher utilization is connected to GHP members concerned they would lose coverage if Congress repealed the ACA. Despite Congress’ and the president’s threats and a few close votes, the repeal didn’t happen. But before that effort stalled, Geisinger said many members got healthcare services just in case.
“Similarly, provider tiering in benefit plan changes for self-insured employees were announced in the fall of 2017. These benefit changes caused certain employees to accelerate medical services through providers that fall under higher out-of-pocket tiers beginning Jan. 1, 2018. These one-time impacts, while negatively affecting second-quarter results, are expected to improve operating profits beginning in the third fiscal quarter,” Geisinger said in the report.
Geisinger expects to resolve the CSR non-payment issue this year after raising the average premium rate by 31% to help offset the loss of payments. GHP also gained more than 20,000 members in its exchange plans, a 39% increase, for 2018, which should help offset losses.
GHP had 559,643 members in its health plans through the first half, which was a 0.4% increase compared to a year ago.
Concerning utilization, Geisinger had an increase of 3.5% in discharges and 2.6% in discharges and observations/23-hour stays compared to a year ago. “This growth was attributable to success in expanding clinical programs. Based solely upon hospitals controlled for two years or more, Geisinger experienced a 2.9% increase in discharges when compared to the year-earlier period,” the report states.
However, percent of occupancy based on physically available beds dipped from 60.2% to 59.9%.
Meanwhile, outpatient visits were on the rise. Outpatient emergency room visits increased from nearly 174,000 the previous year to almost 181,000 in fiscal 2018. Clinic outpatient visits increased from 1.65 million to 1.77 million.
Geisinger is the latest nonprofit to offer updates about finances. Over the past week, other major nonprofits have released financial information, including:
All had positive notes in their reports. Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic said operating income and revenue bounced back in 2017 after rough numbers in the previous year. UPMC said its clinical and insurance sides had strong performances as net income hit $1.3 billion. Profits for these companies have been scrutinized as critics question whether they are giving enough back to their communities as nonprofit organizations.
I’m currently two thirds the way through The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam. It’s the story of Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots.
The book is a bit dated, published in 2006, but it’s really the story of a father’s influence.
Steve Belichick, football scout for Navy, had a huge influence on his son Bill.
Dad:
Bill is often quoted as saying, “Do your job.”
Hard work was part of Bill’s life because his father worked hard, harder and longer than other football scouts. Bill’s dad reminds me of mine.
I was fortunate to be brought up on a dairy farm. Hard work is synonymous with life for dairy farmers.
My dad was the hardest working man I ever knew. He never preached about hard work. He simply did it and expected his children to live that way too. Frankly, we didn’t think there was any other way.
Work:
I don’t understand people who work so they don’t have to work.
We are made to work. Work gives meaning to life.
Success apart from hard work is shallow, degrading, and unfulfilling.
The work of leadership begins with modeling the way.*
#1. Do the work.
Get off your butt. You can’t lead from a chair. If you aren’t sure what to do. Do something and learn as you go.
Show the way. Don’t simply point the way.
Ask more of yourself than you ask of others.
Get dirty. Perform menial tasks.
Identify with support staff.
Never look down on people who do work that’s different from yours. Organizational silos disrespect the work of others.
#2. Support others while they work.
Challenge and cheer.
Notice progress.
Honor the qualities that produce results – things like industry, discipline, and attention to detail.
#3. Remove obstacles to successful work.
Make the work of others less frustrating and more productive. One corporate leader told me, “My main job is figuring out how to remove obstacles that slow my team.”
If you have position, you have authority to eliminate barriers and create connections.
As a society, we can and are collecting data in many ways. The question is not how to get more data, but how to use it effectively?
By 2020, approximately 1.7 MB of new information will be created every second for every human being on the planet.1 That is an incredible amount of data!
Yet, of all the data the world is creating both personally and professionally, less than 0.5 percent of it is ever analyzed and used.2 Analyzing less than 0.5 percent leaves a lot of opportunity on the table.
Not just volume, connection and integration
Clearly, as a society, we can and are collecting data in many ways. The question is not how to get more data, but how to use it effectively? In healthcare, how do we capture greater knowledge from the right data at the right time for truly actionable insights?
Many healthcare organizations have started down the road to digital transformation by capturing more data from various service lines with different technologies and systems. However, that information is often captured and used within silos, which limits the impact. The true transformational change occurs when we put all of the data together – i.e., integrate the data, analyze and then share those insights across the organization.
Rapid analysis, insights and action
Better integrating and connecting data is, however, only one part of the equation. Insights from big data days, weeks, months or even years later limit our ability to make corrections and find opportunities for improvements. Speed to insights from the data is critical.
Technically, the data must be made available and analyzed in time to affect decisions. For example, near real time information is typically important for clinical care decisions. Once the data, analysis and insights have been generated, the individual making the decision needs to make that information part of the workflow and the decision-making process.
The digitally enabled organization
The organization needs to build trust in and adopt these new insights as tools to assist making the best decisions for each patient at the right place at the right time. This requires making the organization a digitally enabled organization.
The digitally enabled organization leverages experience, expertise and the best data-driven insights to make the right decisions, and operate most efficiently. The digitally enabled organization is agile and is enabled by the right insights at the right time. The digitally enabled organization drives the expansion of precision medicine, transforms the delivery of care and improves the patient experience.
Witness firsthand how digital agility and the digitally enabled organization can improve patient care and engagement. For example, organizations can create data-driven solutions to patient leakage challenges and rise to their operational opportunities. The result is optimal utilization and enhanced patient experience.3
Into the future
Achieving a digitally enabled organization lays a strong foundation to adopt new tools, ways of working and driving continuous improvement. This shift also allows the organization to incorporate predictive approaches and other advanced analytics that may include artificial intelligence. A layer of trust in insights creates a powerful data-driven culture that is transformative.
The Milkshake Marketing segmentation methodology does not segment the market around unmet needs. It risks leaving possible opportunities hidden from view and targeting unattractive segments.
When it comes to discovering hidden segments of opportunity, outcome-based market segmentation gets the job done best.
When thinking about market segmentation, an important first question to ask is, “What is a market?” After all, how you choose to define a “market” will determine just what it is you will try to segment. For example:
You could define a market as a group of people — and segment those people based on similarities in their demographics, psychographics, attitudes, behaviors or the generation in which they were born.
You could define a market as a technology, such as semiconductors — and segment your market around technology applications.
You could define a market as an industry vertical, such as health care or retail — and segment your market around geographic region or size of the business.
But when it comes to informing product marketing and innovation, what is the best approach? To answer that question, let’s remind ourselves why we want to segment a market in the first place.
Companies employ market segmentation methods as a means to discover groups of customers that have similar needs so that product offerings can be uniquely tailored to — and effectively positioned at — each segment. In short, market segmentation is a method companies use to discover segments of opportunity: groups of customers with different under/over-served needs.
Consequently, the segments resulting from a good market segmentation scheme should possess these 4 characteristics:
Homogeneous population: the population of each segment should be homogeneous, with little variation in the needs customers believe are underserved, overserved and appropriately served.
Mutually exclusive: the set of needs that customers believe are underserved, overserved and appropriately served should be different from segment to segment.
Collectively exhaustive: 100 percent of the customer population should be effectively classified by the segmentation scheme so all customers are accounted for. This ensures all segments are discovered and the most attractive segments can be targeted.
When it comes to putting Jobs-to-be-Done Theory into practice, two alternative approaches to market segmentation have emerged: Milkshake Marketing (a methodology, as I will explain, that is technically flawed) and Outcome-Based Segmentation (a methodology that is proven to work in practice).
When Clay Christensen employs his Milkshake Marketing segmentation methodology, he defines a market as a group of people who buy a product, e.g., milkshake buyers — and segments them into groups of buyers that have a unique product use case. That product use case is defined by what is considered a unique set of circumstances faced by the buyer and the emotional and functional jobs the customer is trying to get done in that set of circumstances.
So what’s wrong with segmenting a market around product use case and then profiling that segment by the jobs that are causing people to buy a specific product in that circumstance? Quite simply, as a methodology it fails to reliably reveal segments of customers that share a unique set of under/over-served needs.
Consequently, while the Milkshake Marketing approach may be useful for uncovering unique marketing opportunities (selling more of an existing product by telling stories about a use case), it is not the right tool for innovation.
Where does Milkshake Marketing go wrong?
If a company wants to use market segmentation as a method to discover groups of customers who have the exact same under/over-served needs, then it follows that the most effective means for segmentation would be to segment around unmet customer needs. Only after the need-based segment is defined should a company identify the unique set of circumstances that are causing customers in each segment to have the same under/over-served needs.
Milkshake Marketing segmentation does the exact opposite — it makes the use case or circumstance the bases for segmentation, and after the segment is defined, it seeks to understand customer jobs/needs in that circumstance. It is not needs-based segmentation.
In addition, when employing the Milkshake Marketing method, only people who are using a specific product (e.g., milkshakes) are considered, leaving those that bought competing products (eggs and muffins) out of the market segmentation analysis. These two factors contribute to the creation of a market segmentation scheme that is technically flawed along several fronts.
The population of each segment is not homogeneous
The segment of milkshake buyers that find themselves on a long, boring commute to work and want to stave off hunger do not all share the same set of under/over-served needs. Some milkshake buyers in that circumstance may value finding something to do with their free hand, while others may not. Some milkshake buyers may be time-constrained and underserved along many fronts when variations in the restaurant’s ability to delivery cause them to be late for work. Other milkshake buyers may have all the time in the world and have few, if any unmet needs. Segmenting the market around a unique product use case does not guarantee the resulting segment is comprised of a homogeneous population, i.e., a segment in which all members agree on which needs are underserved, overserved and appropriately served.
There is no guarantee the segments are mutually exclusive
When segmenting around circumstance/product use case, it is possible, even likley, that the same under/over-served needs will show up in multiple use cases. For example, when it comes to buying milkshakes, it is quite possible that the segment of morning commuters who buy milkshakes and the segment of parents who buy milkshakes in the afternoon share a common set of unmet needs — both may complain about waiting too long in line, not getting what they ordered, or feeling bloated after finishing their shakes.
If the needs that customers believe are underserved, overserved and appropriately served aren’t different from segment to segment, then the segmentation scheme is rendered useless.
The segmentation scheme is not collectively exhaustive
When segmenting a market, a company would typically want to understand how the entire population of interest is segmented, not just a subset. The Milkshake Marketing methodology does not seek to, and is unable to, account for the entire population — it cannot place each individual into a segment.
Discovering the morning commuter and the afternoon parent purchase segments of milkshake use does not account for all milkshake purchases. Nor does it account for people who purchased other products from those same locations in the morning or afternoon. It offers an incomplete view of the market, leaving possible marketing and innovation opportunities hidden from view.
The action you’d take to pursue a segment is unclear
When segmenting the market by circumstance/use case, there is no guarantee that the segment population has an actionable set of under/over-served needs. Worse yet, half the segment population may have one set of unmet needs and the other half of the same segment may have a different set of unmet needs. If the segment population is not homogeneous, then a single market and product strategy cannot be devised for that segment. This is one reason why the milkshake client in the famous Milkshake Marketing example was wise to reject the team’s recommendations.
When segmenting a market, each segment should contain a homogeneous population and the segments themselves should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. While the Milkshake Marketing methodology is not capable of producing a segmentation scheme with these characteristics, Outcome-Based Segmentation methodology was designed with this end in mind.
Outcome-Based Market Segmentation
It’s true that a circumstance can cause a need to be unmet, but the way to figure out the circumstance (of which their could be thousands of possibilities) that is causing needs to be unmet is not to speculate on the thousands of possible circumstances. Rather, it is to segment the market around unmet needs to discover segments of customers that have unique under/over-served needs — and then determine the circumstances that are causing those needs to be unmet.
This thinking has an important impact and poses a major constraint on how a market must be defined in order to discover the ultimate segmentation scheme — to find the ultimate targets for innovation, you must define a market in a way that makes it possible to segment around the customers’ needs, forcing us to define exactly what a “need” is.
For this reason we define a market as the core functional job that a group of people are trying to get done — and segment the market around the metrics they use to measure success when getting that job done. These metrics, a special form of need statement called desired outcomes, are the customer’s needs. This thinking forms the foundation for our outcome-based segmentation methodology.
What makes outcome-based market segmentation a breakthrough approach is the way it defines a “market” (as a functional job people are trying to get done). This enables a company to define a complete set of needs for that market — for all those people trying to get that job done — and to use those needs as the bases for market segmentation.
More specifically, when applying Jobs-to-be-Done Theory to market segmentation, we study the core functional job-to-be-done, making it the unit of analysis, and uncover all the customers desired outcomes along with all the emotional, related and consumption chain jobs (and outcomes) associated with the core functional job. The data set employs a large number of variables — often totaling 150 or so. (See Customer Needs Through a Jobs-To-Be-Done Lens for more details.)
Next we survey up to 1000 people to document the circumstances they were in the last time they executed the job — and to rate the importance and satisfaction of each desired outcome and job statement, given the solution they chose to get the job done, whether it be a product, service or a homegrown work-around. (See Quantify Your Customer’s Unmet Needs.)
Using statistically valid data that is representative of the total customer population, we are able to discover how the market is naturally segmented. In other words, we are able to use factor and cluster analysis to discover and size all the unique under/over-served outcome-based segments that are representative of 100 percent of the market. Analyzing the profiling data that is collected enables us to discover the circumstances that are causing the outcomes to be underserved.
Outcome-based market segmentation makes no assumptions about the optimal theoretical framework. Instead, the empirical data (knowledge of what needs are important and satisfied in a representative sample of the population) drives the segmentation selection. Half the population may think outcomes 10, 15, 20, 30 and 50 are highly underserved. The other half may think that outcomes 7, 11, 19, 32 and 61 are highly underserved. Cluster analysis reveals these segments within the data.
Once a company knows with confidence what segments of opportunity exist and why, i.e., what circumstances explain causation, they are able to devise a product portfolio strategy that addresses each of the segments they choose to target. They also know size of each segment, which is critical when forecasting revenue potential.
The segments discovered using the Outcome-Based Market Segmentation methodology inherently (by design) possess all the characteristics of a good market segmention scheme. Outcome-based segments contain a homogeneous population and are mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive and highly actionable.
In Competing Against Luck, Clay Christensen et al say:
“In the context of a data-obsessed world, it might be a surprise that some of the world’s greatest innovators have succeeded with little more than their own intuition about a Job to Be Done to guide their efforts.”
True, but unfortunately, not all of us are born great innovators with perfect intuition. Most of us need a repeatable, proven process to ensure success at innovation. While Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing segmentation approach relies on observation and intuition to try and find segments worth targeting, the ODI methodology uses hard data and statistics to discover segments of opportunity that companies can count on to make innovation both predictable and profitable.
EQ is often cited as the difference between winners and losers. Use these quotes to up your game.
As far as I know, my MBA program didn’t teach any classes in emotional intelligence. While I got a solid education, I can’t help but think that I might have been served better by taking a course or two in EQ. After all, study after study has shown that emotional intelligence is the different between a successful CEO and an also-ran.
Here are some of the best quotes to inspire you to become a more emotionally intelligent leader:
The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart.
-Rasheed Ogunlaru
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. -Jack Welch
In my 35 years in business, I have always trusted my emotions. I have always believed that by touching emotion you get the best people to work with you, the best clients to inspire you, the best partners and most devoted customers.
-Kevin Roberts
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. -Dale Carnegie
When our emotional health is in a bad state, so is our level of self-esteem. We have to slow down and deal with what is troubling us, so that we can enjoy the simple joy of being happy and at peace with ourselves. -Jess C. Scott
No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business. -Norman Vincent Peale
When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. -Stephen R. Covey
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution. -Kahlil Gibran
Remember that failure is an event, not a person. -Zig Ziglar
Unleash in the right time and place before you explode at the wrong time and place. -Oli Anderson
Emotional intelligent people use self-awareness to their advantage to assess a situation, get perspective, listen without judgment, process, and hold back from reacting head on. At times, it means the decision to sit on your decision. By thinking over your situation rationally, without drama, you’ll eventually arrive at other, more sane conclusions. –Marcel Schwantes
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. -Fyodor Dostoyevsky
People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. –Travis Bradberry
The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions. -John Hancock
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master. -Epictetus
Every time we allow someone to move us with anger, we teach them to be angry. -Barry Neil Kaufman
Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values. -Joshua L. Liebman
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. -Leo Buscaglia
Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way. -Mavis Mazhura
Experience is not what happens to you–it’s how you interpret what happens to you. -Aldous Huxley
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. -Bill Gates
Don’t let the baggage from your past–heavy with fear, guilt, and anger–slow you down. -Maddy Malhotra
Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. -Charles J. Sykes
It isn’t stress that makes us fall–it’s how we respond to stressful events.
-Wayde Goodall
Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. -Benjamin Franklin
Pausing helps you refrain from making a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. –Justin Bariso
No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it. -Jack Welch
Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand … prejudice, fear, and ignorance walk hand in hand. -Peart
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. -Charlotte Brontë
The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions. -Donald Calne
Change happens in the boiler room of our emotions–so find out how to light their fires. -Jeff Dewar
If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far. -Daniel Goleman
Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got. -Janis Joplin
Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.
-Anthony de Mello
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
-Carl R. Rogers
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing. -Socrates
If we can’t laugh at ourselves, do we have the right to laugh at others? -C.H. Hamel
We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful. -Eric Micha’el Leventhal
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. -Ernest Hemingway
Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone … just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. -F. Scott Fitzgerald
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. -C.G. Jung
What’s your favorite quote about emotional intelligence that needs to be added to this list? What inspires you to develop your EQ further on an ongoing basis?
HENRY KOTULA 