CHAPTER 10 EMOTION

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

Dale Carnegie¹

Emotion is defined as a strong feeling, coming from circumstances, our mood, our thoughts, our history, our experiences, our relationships.² Emotion is complex. Emotion directly involves how we interact with others and also impacts how we are affected by experiences either in the present, past or imagined future. Emotions are dynamic.

Emotions are a significant part of our lives. They can fuel us and drain us in equal measure. Unmanaged, emotions can leave us feeling pushed, pulled and out of control, or fuel us with energy, resourcing us. And that is just our own emotional rollercoaster. Working with the emotions of others brings further complexity.

In many organizations, something of a paradox exists around emotions. On the one hand, organizations focus on logic, rationality, process, structure; on the other hand, organizational rhetoric includes the importance placed on employee engagement, on engaging hearts and minds, on creativity and new ways of doing things. Can both exist together?

Yes.

And yet many of us seem to shy away from emotions, worrying about being out of control, unable to handle emotions, incompetence in the face of emotions, being upset. We don’t trust ourselves to be able to even go there. We learn that to climb the corporate ladder, emotions have no place in business. Really?

Perhaps we’re too ready to think of “emotion” and “emotional” as chaotic, out of our control and in the negative: sadness, crying, anger, anxiety; rather than something we can work with, and the positives: joy, hope, excitement, trust, love, passion, focus.

Take a moment to reflect - if you focus on the negative emotions above, what happens?

If you imagine the positive emotions, what comes to mind?

Of course, we can’t just have the positive emotions and cut out the negative. If you try to protect yourself from the negative emotional experiences in your life, you anaesthetise yourself from emotional experiences altogether – dampening the highs and the lows.

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

Kahlil Gibran³

SO, WHAT ARE EMOTIONS AND WHAT DO THEY DO FOR US?

Each emotion serves a purpose. A moment of sadness when we reflect, question, critique, reconfigure is an invaluable moment of development and integration. A moment of anger, if it’s noticed and brought to light, can offer insight and new perspective into how we might get in our own way or be stopping others grow – what assumptions are we making that are keeping ourselves or others “stuck”, what might we need to shift, or how could we support others to shift? A moment of joy and passion can be a helpful guide as to what really engages and resources us.

Our emotional brain is older than the “rational brain” or the frontal cortex.

In the early days of our development as a species, having a hair trigger that could unleash a fast, destructive response towards an attack, or enable a swift escape, would be a survival advantage. We still have that hair trigger, only the circumstances have changed and the attack, real or imagined, is unlikely to necessitate the level of response that an uncontrolled emotional hijack dishes out.

Our emotions are triggered more quickly than our rational mind – “first feeling, second thoughts”.⁴ It takes the rational mind a moment or two longer to register and respond to an event – we might find we are half way through an “automatic” response when our rational mind kicks in and we wonder why we are shouting at the person who has just said “Boo!” as a joke.

Emotional memories are also stored more vividly and can be particularly strong (but highly inaccurate as the detailed content of memory changes over time). Scraps of current experience reminiscent of an emotionally charged past experience will trigger that earlier emotion.

Emotions play a stronger part in our decision-making than we give them credit for and they are particularly influential when decisions are complex and messy. We are not the efficient and effective rational thinkers that we like to think we are. Emotional biases outside our conscious awareness guide decisions, indicated by gut feel, a racing heart – intuition. And our previous emotional experiences impact significantly on the decisions about choices available to us.⁵ Once made, we then rationalize our decision, looking for evidence to back it up.

So if we do find that we are shouting at someone for jumping out and saying “Boo”, if we’re not careful, we can continue to justify that decision “to shout”, thereby creating a scenario that is unreal and unhelpful, simply because we are geared to rationalizing and supporting the decision – reinforcing that it was the right thing to do.

Emotions are triggered by:

•     Our thoughts (as well as experiences). If, once we’ve assessed a situation, we decide that “Brian is manipulating the figures here” or “Leah has really delivered a fabulous report”, our feelings about each individual, or our emotional response, will correspond with the view we have taken of them. Our emotions line up obediently behind our thought processes, supporting and nurturing the thoughts we are expressing to ourselves and others.

•     Our actions and the actions and moods of those around us. We are infected by others’ moods. It takes just two minutes on average for us to “pick up” the moods of emotionally expressive people around us.⁶ Catching others emotions is a bit like catching a bug – it is infectious. How emotionally expressive or susceptible to others’ emotions are you?

Not only are we picking up a significant amount of data from the way things are said, and through others’ body language,⁷ but there is evidence that we actually feel what others feel in response to events. Neuroscientists, through neural imaging, have identified mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are a type of brain cell that respond equally when we perform an action and when we witness someone else perform the same action.⁸ Giacomo Rizzolatti,⁹ who was one of the first to discover mirror neurons, sees them providing some explanation of how we develop empathy.

Imagine a situation where you see someone giving a terrible on-stage presentation – you can easily imagine and actually “feel” what it might be like to be there. You see your colleague receiving some great feedback from their manager – you almost feel the impact of that feedback on your colleague – how good that must be.

Emotions are a core element in each of us and help us adapt and deal with basic life tasks such as surviving immediate danger, loss, achieving, reproducing – survival of the species.¹⁰ As social beings, the ability to recognize emotions in others enables us to effectively navigate social interactions. Daniel Siegel sees emotion as central in enabling us to make sense of our world and ourselves in it.¹¹

Ignoring and avoiding our own and others’ emotions stores up trouble. Emotions don’t go away, they get in the way. As Laura Whitworth¹² and her colleagues emphasize, “it’s the hiding, denying, submerging that gets [people] into trouble” – emotions can keep people stuck, suboptimal, unhappy, and eventually leak out when they really don’t want them to.

WHAT DO EMOTIONS DO FOR ORGANIZATIONS?

As the binding ingredients in adaptive organizational systems, emotional connection to an organization equates to engagement, whether it’s hearts and minds of employees or brand loyalty from customers. Emotional memories are strong and vivid,¹³ and at a very basic level, a positive emotional experience leads to a greater likelihood that an action will be repeated. The more frequently and consistently a brand can connect with a customer on a positive emotional level, the stronger and more deeply the customer engages with the brand.¹⁴ Engagement is a winning differentiator.

If your employees can provide your customers with positive emotional experiences, no matter how small, they create meaningful and memorable connections with your brand.¹⁵ In the context of employees, most people (70%) are not deeply connected to their work¹⁶ so there is a lot of untapped resource and potential to draw on. The key to connection is emotional at its core.¹⁷

The building of an organization that is filled with people who are able to handle their own and others’ emotions is a task for individuals and organizations together. Individual leaders of the organization require a degree of personal mastery (including emotional mastery) to be most effective and need to be continually learning and moving forward themselves.

Richard Barrett’s¹⁸ work has focused on the developmental mix of organizations who want to really engage their employees. He describes seven levels of organizational consciousness or development. At lower levels of development, where the focus is purely on meeting the basic needs of the business (pursuit of profit or financial stability, and loyalty) there tends to be a predominance of fear-based, rigid, authoritarian hierarchies due to the prevailing anxiety that basic organizational needs will not be met. It’s important to meet the basic organizational needs of course, but a focus on these alone leads to greater cultural entropy – greater conflict, friction and frustration. Fear, anger, blame would be a larger part of an organization suffering from greater cultural entropy. And a lot of energy can be spent unproductively, trying to navigate and survive in such an organization.

When an organization is focused on meeting its basic survival needs AND its growth needs, then the organizational context is more open and inclusive. Adaptive systems of governance are in place that empower employees with responsible freedom and support continuous learning, opportunities for growth and greater contribution. In this context, greater passion and motivation exists among employees – greater engagement.

What is the emotional landscape that you are aware of within your organization? Fearful, angry and anxious or engaged, motivated and open to learning?

YOUR PERSONAL EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE

At a personal level, you can empower yourself to manage emotions better, to build the capacity to pause and assess what is happening and choose how to respond from a variety of possible actions. This will lead to increased performance, connection with a deeper intelligence and intuitive awareness. One of the quickest and most effective ways to achieve this is through emotional self-regulation and generating positive emotions, such as compassion, love, appreciation, and care.¹⁹

How can you master your emotions rather than allow them to master you?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor your own and others’ feelings and emotions, to be able to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide thinking and action.²⁰ Without this, your negative emotions will continue to control you, get in your way and keep you “stuck” in behaviour patterns that may become unhelpful (even destructive in the ever-changing organizational landscape), and you may not learn how to ignite more positive emotions. Emotional intelligence starts with self-awareness.

Take the story of a passionate general manager. Under tough trading conditions, to underline the need to manage costs, he was known to throw purchase order books and invoices at those employees looking for his signature, yelling at them to get out of his sight. Whilst initially useful to underline an important business message, the outbursts continued, lost the initial impact and started to have a strong negative effect. A strong negative emotional outburst used consistently over time will drive any risk alerts, challenging requests, or innovative developments “underground”. The behaviour will disengage employees and create a culture of fear rather than growth.

As the basic currency of relationships (and all that they bring), emotions have a significant impact in the workplace. Daniel Goleman found that the most frequently mentioned factor for derailment among executives was poor relationships,²¹ where the executive was too harshly critical, insensitive, and demanding, alienating those that they worked with.

On the other hand, those executives who were successful:

•     Stayed composed under pressure, remaining calm, confident and dependable when the heat was on (as opposed to exhibiting moodiness and subject to angry outbursts).

•     Took responsibility – admitting mistakes and failures, acting to fix problems (as opposed to denying, covering up, passing on the blame and general defensiveness).

•     Had high integrity, were concerned for subordinates and colleagues and prioritizing their needs (as opposed to over-ambitious and ready to get ahead at the expense of others).

•     Were empathic, sensitive, tactful and considerate in their dealings with everyone (as opposed to abrasive, arrogant, or intimidating towards others – especially subordinates).

•     Appreciated diversity, and were able to get along (as opposed to a failure to build strong, cooperative, mutually beneficial relationships).

Emotions can be used very positively at work. People who are self-aware know their mood, can more easily shift a prevailing negative mood, and move on.

A few years ago, working at a call centre for an international media company, a supervisor, new to the role, shared how he constructively worked with his feelings. “Every day when I approach the building, I turn around, and tell myself, I can either enjoy the day or hate the day, either way I’m going to be here, so I may as well enjoy it. I put a smile on my face and go to work.”

Imagine being able to withstand the emotional storms and remain connected, at a very human level, to a busy and demanding clientele. Delivering what’s required, managing expectations brilliantly and delighting your customers – all without feeling emotionally drained at the end of each shift.

Staying connected with your emotional state at any one time, gaining insight into how your emotions are triggered and developing skills in emotional regulation in what Siegel terms “response flexibility”²² are core to you being the best that you can be at any given moment in any particular circumstance.

Noticing that you have a choice as to how you engage with and respond with your own emotions and those of others will enable you to develop a level of non-reactivity,²³ keep connected to the wider agenda and develop personal resilience (explored in more detail in Chapter 14, Resilience). You will have a greater depth of resources and choices available to you during moments of extreme pressure and in the everyday management of a high and intense workload.

In the words of Brian Tracy:²⁴

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”

EMOTION AND 31PRACTICES

The 31Practices methodology translates the core values of the organization to provide a “living” blueprint as to how employees need to work with each other and so reduces some of the feeling of a tug of war that can happen when people and groups have different ways of doing things.

31Practices enables freedom for each employee in terms of how they choose to “live” the Practice of each day. Through the design of the process, employees know that their collective attention to the Practice of the day is making a contribution to the organization’s purpose each day.

This collaboration is underlined day by day, when people witness their colleagues’ behaviour and feelings, creating a positive cycle of reinforcement (mirror neurons). Sharing of stories and impact data further demonstrates how each individual can make a difference.

We have seen, first hand, how this process engages employees on an emotional level.