Three one-hour trainings that moved emotional intelligence from idea to habit — a cross-sector Irish leadership cohort

Quick answer

For a cross-sector cohort of leaders at an Irish innovation-network conference, IMPROV Communication co-delivered three open one-hour EPIC × IMPROV trainings on emotional intelligence and psychological safety to around 90 people across a single day. The aim was to make these ideas felt and turn them into everyday behaviour. In anonymous feedback, every one of the 36 respondents would recommend it, and 33 chose to continue with our 30-day sprint.

At a glance

• Client: A cross-sector leadership cohort at an Irish innovation-network conference
• Engagement: EPIC × IMPROV — three open one-hour trainings, June 2026
• Scale: One day, three one-hour open sessions, ~90 leaders from multiple organisations
• 100% would recommend the training to a colleague (36 of 36 respondents)
• 6.3 / 7 average rating that the training was valuable
• 92% opted in to the 30-day behavioural-change sprint (33 of 36 respondents)

Source: anonymous post-session survey completed by 36 of the ~90 participants (around 40%).

Why this cohort asked us in

Innovation networks bring together leaders who rarely share a room: different companies, different sectors, the same human challenges. The organisers wanted more than a keynote people would nod along to and forget. They wanted an experience that changed how participants behave once they were back at their own desks.

The brief was emotional intelligence and psychological safety — the conditions under which people speak up, take sensible risks, and think well together. The real question behind it was the one every leader recognises: how do you take a single shared moment and make it shift behaviour for the months that follow?

The challenges that shaped our design:

• Mixed audience, no shared team. Participants came from many organisations, so the work had to land for everyone, not one company's culture.
• A single hour to make it count. Each session ran for one hour. The design had to create a felt shift fast, then give people one thing to carry out of the room.
• The fade afterwards. Most events end and evaporate. The design had to carry past the thirty-day mark, where learning usually quietly disappears.

What we delivered

Three open one-hour trainings across a single day, co-facilitated as part of the EPIC × IMPROV partnership, built so that people did the work rather than watched it.

Each session followed the three-phase architecture at the heart of our methodology:

• Activation. Participants arrived primed to take part, not to spectate.
• The session itself. A focused hour of experiential exercises grounded in the research on emotional intelligence and psychological safety (Goleman, Edmondson, Brown) and the 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV. People do, then reflect, then commit to something specific.
• Reinforcement. A 30-day sprint — a short prompt twice a week — to turn a good hour into lasting behaviour.

What the participants told us

We gathered anonymous feedback at the close of the sessions; 36 of the roughly 90 attendees responded. Three things stood out.

An unanimous recommendation. All 36 respondents said they would recommend the training to a colleague, and none rated its value below the midpoint of the scale. For a mixed, multi-organisation audience in a single hour, that level of agreement is rare.

Concepts became behaviour. Asked what they would do differently on Monday, people didn't reach for grand intentions. They named small, observable actions — and one in particular came up again and again: catching the word "but" and replacing it with "and". Nearly a third of the respondents committed to it. It is the clearest sign that "Yes, And" moved from a principle on a slide into something people intend to practise.

Safety, felt rather than explained. The open answers told a consistent story of arriving guarded and loosening as the work went on. People wrote about being "uncomfortable" at the start and "relaxed and enjoyed it" by the end. You cannot lecture someone into feeling safe. They have to experience it, and they did — inside an hour.

In their own words

Yes, and — it's so powerful seeing it in action compared to no, but. — Participant, anonymous survey

No judgement of myself. I am often my biggest critic. — Participant, anonymous survey

Everyone has a contribution and can affect the team's ability to achieve. — Participant, anonymous survey

I relaxed and enjoyed it, even though initially uncomfortable. — Participant, anonymous survey

What they committed to on Monday

• Use "and" instead of "but" for a whole week of meetings.
• Start with the lowest-ranked person in the meeting.
• Encourage more junior members to speak.
• Connect with the people they don't normally gravitate towards.
• Pause before responding, and listen more actively.

Bring this to your organisation

Most leaders share a version of the same question: how do you use a shared moment in time to change how people work together long after it ends? What transfers from this engagement is the approach — experiential work that people feel rather than sit through, and the three phases that turn even a single hour into lasting behaviour.

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