This app has gamified improving your emotional intelligence

Mental health has become a universal concern for benefit leaders in the last four years — but have they managed to offer resources that genuinely improve workers' personal lives?

Ahead, an app that helps users improve their emotional intelligence through bad habit-breaking exercises, could be one more tool in the mental health toolbox, filling the gap between therapy and meditation-driven solutions. Inspired by his own need for self-improvement, Kai Koch, co-founder of Ahead, knew he needed a tool that pushed him not just to be aware of certain behaviors but to change them. 

"I went through a breakup, which made me realize I had certain recurring behavioral [challenges] in my life that led to relationships failing," says Koch. "I realized that most of the things we do to self-improve are focused on passive content consumption — we read, listen and watch, but we never really interactively work on our skills."

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Koch compares Ahead to Duolingo, a gamified experience that helps people learn little by little each day. The app consists of over 100 techniques users can refer to when feeling overwhelmed or confused, alongside exercises that help the user identify triggers and work through their responses. Once an exercise is mastered, the user gets a reward.

"When you finish an activity, you may be rewarded with a comic, so you associate a positive moment that made you laugh with the activity that you have just finished," says Koch. "There is also a real-life reward — in an exercise where your task is to smile at a stranger, when you receive that smile back from a stranger, that is a very rewarding moment."

Koch underlines how important it is to reward better behaviors and acknowledge the intrinsic satisfaction that comes with self-improvement. It also ensures users stay engaged with the app from the start. According to Ahead, 87% of its users report progress in their behavior within two weeks. 

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Koch encourages employers to consider if improving emotional intelligence could also serve as a way to improve workers' soft skills. This can be especially important as workplaces become more divided by return-to-office mandates. Better skills around dealing with co-workers and navigating professional spaces in-person and online could prove valuable for those entering the workforce or adjusting to a new work environment. Koch notes that higher emotional intelligence may translate to more sales and loyal customers, too. 

"If you've ever come out of a social interaction with somebody terrible, you feel bad for a very long time," says Koch. "You have amazing doctors with great social-emotional skills, and you have great doctors with terrible emotional skills, and the interactions are completely different."

And in a world where workers feel increasingly threatened by the advancement of AI, it's only that much more crucial for professionals to strengthen their communication skills, explains Koch. 

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"AI will take on many of the analytical sides of our work life, and what will remain for us are pure human qualities," he says. "So we need to find new [ways] to upskill our workforces in an environment where our social and emotional skills will become a large part of our unique skill set as humans."