emotions

There are 5 posts tagged emotions.

How to be Emotionally Intelligent with Written Communication at the Workplace

Emotions play a big part in our communication at the workplace, either face-to-face or written. The way we express our emotions require us to be sensitive to others’ emotions. In the same way, we also need to be sensitive to our own emotions and values and respond accordingly. The mastery of our own emotions is a skill that can help us become more productive at work. Working on how we express ourselves can greatly affect how we connect and collaborate with others.

Expressing ourselves through written communication is a challenging task as we have limited means to express our ideas. Email, chats and all other sorts of documents in a workplace often focus totally on the subject or topic; which makes it difficult to understand the emotions behind them. However, I feel we need to make space for our emotions, ideas, and thoughts to be freely expressed in any form of communication to build lasting trust and cooperation with our colleagues.

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

Pros and Cons of Written Communication In The Workplace?

The digital age has made communication faster and more accessible. We’re able to send messages to people we can’t meet personally in a more efficient manner. Emails and text messages can distribute information to people anywhere in the world while we’re at the comfort of our desk.

We use written communication in many different situations at the workplace. Some of these situations can be found below :-

  • Sharing important information through emails to different division members
  • Providing feedback on documents sent to us for review
  • Responding to messages asynchronously
  • Requesting permission for vacations leave and other administrative tasks

These situations can get challenging since you need to fit your message into a certain format and you’re left to express your message often only through text. There are no verbal and nonverbal cues to help you express your thoughts.

Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way. -Mavis Mazhura

Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way. -Mavis Mazhura

So, where does emotional intelligence fit? Emotional intelligence can help us in phrasing our emotions into words and sentences. The knowledge of our emotions serves as a guide to how we can communicate better with other professionals.

Communication, in whatever form, is never detached from our personality (thoughts, emotions, beliefs). Even a simple email or letter is already an expression of ourselves. Emotional Intelligence is not just about communicating verbally and listening to others. It is about expressing ourselves clearly regardless of what medium we use for communication.

Written communication, while it is effective, also has drawbacks. Since messages are limited to written text, they can get lost in translation. The way we choose to express the message can be interpreted differently by the other person. Some parts or the whole intent of the message can be misunderstood.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. – Dale Carnegie

What Can We Do To Avoid Confusion And Misinterpretation?

By being careful about a few ideas as listed below, we can make written communication easier for others to process and understand :-

  1. Write messages in simple and short sentences. Written communication is about effectively transferring information. By adopting a simple style of writing, we become more effective since there is less room for misinterpretation.
  2. Ask others if they understand the message you’re expressing. The most effective way to ensure that no miscommunication happens is by confirming the message with others. There’s nothing wrong with asking colleagues if they understood the details you provided.
  3. Be careful in being funny or sarcastic. It’s alright to add some humor to messages, but be sensitive of others who might get offended or misinterpret them.
  4. Avoid emotionally-charged messages. Written communication is not meant for emotional release. Ask yourself if you would have the courage to say the same thing face to face. If not, don’t express it as an email either.
  5. Ask for acknowledgement if you expect something back. Or follow up if you don’t hear back or hear an unsatisfactory response to make things clear.
It isn't stress that makes us fall--it's how we respond to stressful events. -Wayde Goodall

It isn’t stress that makes us fall–it’s how we respond to stressful events.
-Wayde Goodall

When Should We Not Use Written Communication?

While written communication may be helpful, there are times when its use is not the best choice. Having the presence of mind not to use written communication if the situation calls for it is also being emotionally intelligent. Some situations like those listed below might require a personal conversation instead of written.

  • Discussing sensitive or emotion-loaded discussions – Written communication cannot express the full spectrum of emotions and messages we wish to send to others. Verbal and nonverbal cues are important when talking about sensitive topics to be able to fully express emotions and communicate the message without room for misinterpretation.
  • Personal discussions – Personal discussions often require attention and immediate feedback. The nature of written communication, unfortunately, cannot fit the needs of these important discussions.

In conclusion, becoming emotionally intelligent requires us to know when and how written communication can be used in a professional setting. Doing it well allows us to capitalise on human relationship and unlock the huge potential when people work together for a common purpose and mission. On the other hand, if not done well, it can also go downhill pretty quickly.

The Role and Importance of Emotions in Our Professional and Personal Lives

When I started working at the age of 21, my manager was only a few years older than me. Both of us being very young and passionate about work, we developed a good friendship. As I completed my first year at work, I sat down with this friend (manager) to discuss my performance. I wasn’t ready for what came next.

In the meeting he was very formal and distant in his approach which I found unfair. Due to our friendship, I expected an informal conversation. Instead, what I got was “feedback” and “improvement points”. When he was done with the performance cycle, it left me in a very bad mood and it affected our friendship. While he was only performing his job as a manager, I was too naive and felt betrayed as a friend. It took us more than a year to mend our friendship, and I am good friends with him to this day.

This incident was very tough for me, and it was not until many years later that I recognised why it was so. At first I blamed my manager friend for being more of a “manager” than a “friend“. Later (after we mend ways) I blamed myself for being too emotional and developing friendships at work. I came to the (wrong) conclusion that emotions and rationality are mutually exclusive, and I shut myself down emotionally.

It was much later that I realised that emotions were not the culprit. Instead it was my inability to handle my emotions which led me to react impulsively. With experience I have come to believe that emotions are absolutely necessary for doing any meaningful work. They only seem tough when we don’t know how to handle them.

I have already written about how to handle our emotions in the workplace. In this article I want to stress on the importance of emotions as the driving force behind decisions.

We Experience The World Through Our Emotions

We walk around the world and make sense of it through our emotions. When we experience an event, different emotions get triggered based on our values and beliefs. Emotions make our experiences good or bad, valuable or not, and pleasurable or painful. If we introspect we will found that every decision we end up taking is derived from an emotion that touched and moved us.

These emotions can overwhelm us occasionally, but without them we would have no connection with people or events around us. While emotions can sometimes bring pain and tears, it is only through them that we feel joy, happiness and peace in life. It is very important to realise that emotions are our strength, and not our weakness.

It is our emotions that make us human. The little moments of joy when we play with our kids, the smile on our faces when we help someone, the tears in our eyes when we see something cruel and terrible (even if it is on TV) – it is these emotions that connect us all as human beings.

Seeing a tweet by a billionaire CEO and to be able to feel empathy for him/her makes us bridge the economic, physical and social divides and come closer. On the other hand, if we are privileged in any way, being able to empathise with the less privileged and act for them brings us closer. Emotions help keep our egos in check, and prevent us from being indifferent towards the less or more privileged in our society.

The Role and Importance of Emotions in our Lives

Emotions and Reason are Not Mutually Exclusive

Most of us believe that emotions and reason are opposites of each other, and it is often presented as a fact that you can’t act rationally if you are emotional. In many workplaces, emotions are frowned upon and an excessive display of emotions (joy, tears, anger) are seen as a liability.

On the contrary, what I have learned over the years is that emotions can be our biggest asset. They can give us important information that can shape our lives if we listen to what they are trying to tell us. The key is to learn how to express our emotions without repression or explosion.

Emotions can help us clear the fog of rational choices and reveal our moral lighthouses. They help us choose wisely when presented with two equally good or equally bad choices. Emotions clarify our thinking and help us see rational choices in a new light while pure rationality often makes us run wild with ideas, even at the expense of others. Rationality without emotions can look enticing in the short term, but it can be a menace in the long term.

It Is Impossible to Be Rational Without Emotions

While it is true that emotions can overwhelm rationality at times, it is impossible to be rational without being emotional. Today there is scientific evidence to prove that we, as human beings, are incapable of making decisions if we can’t feel our emotions. You can read about the works of neurobiologist Antonio Damasio to see that without emotions, there is no decision making possible. [1][2]

He worked on a patient with a severed connection between the frontal lobe (where rationality originates) and cerebral amygdala (where emotions originate) in the brain. After the surgery, the patient could think, but he could not feel anything. He noticed that while he was able to engage in rational thought all the time, he was not able to make a choice over the other.

When Emotions Overwhelm Us?

We all have been in situations where we don’t want to do what we know is the right thing to do. When emotions overwhelm us, we can get sucked into the temptation of the respective emotion and (re)act in a way which provides us emotional relief. For example – When you couldn’t control your frustration and vented it out on your manager because it felt good to spurt it out.

Emotions are very good messengers, but poor masters. We should always listen to them and let them play a big role in our rationality, but subjugating reason to emotional whims can cause us short and long term harm. In the end we should always use reason to choose the best option available for us, and use emotions as a lighthouse to guide us on the right path. This will help us in making the right choices (which might not be the easy ones) in life with conviction.

Emotions Intelligence is a Skill. Train Yourself

Now that we have seen that there is no action possible without emotions, we can conclude that emotions are not bad or good in themselves. It is our ability to handle them that make us interpret them as so. It is a skill that, just like other skills, can be developed.

Learning to deal with uncomfortable emotions builds confidence and opens up new pathways which were earlier closed to you. Emotional people are often regarded as weak in certain societies, but I believe that the ability to handle one’s own emotions is one of the most useful skills a human being can acquire.

Increased emotional awareness can be a great asset we all can make use of not only to make the right decisions for ourselves, but also to create a better world around us. A world which is not mine or yours – but ours.

How To (and not to) Deal with an Emotional Employee

As I wrote previously, every human emotion is valid. However, the story behind them might not be, and we always have the choice of how to respond to an emotion. If we want to master how to deal with others’ emotions, our own emotional mastery is the prerequisite.

Studies have shown that emotions like frustration, cynicism, enthusiasm, etc are as contagious as germs. I believe each human being acts like a tuning fork. Every emotion is like a wave, which when reaches others, either accentuates or dies down depending on whether the frequencies match or not.

When two people are emotionally reactive, even a small argument can quickly escalate into a fight. When we learn to master our own emotions, it gives us an opportunity to deal with any situation confidently. It will dampen any emotional waves and allows collaboration, even in the face of disagreement. We can strengthen our relationships with others, even in the most stressful and difficult situations.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. - Dale Carnegie

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. – Dale Carnegie

1. Learn to Notice Emotional Build Up
Emotions are like storms. Just as we can forecast most weather storms before they strike, we can always notice and predict “emotional” storms too. If an emotional outburst of an employee is a surprise, then there were some signs we missed.

Emotional reactions don’t come out of nowhere. Just like storms, they build up over time. There are always signs, physical and behavioural, which we can observe and watch out for. If we notice these signs, we can get an advance notice of emotional build-up in people.

For example – If we notice tightening of muscles and a red face, the person might be getting angry or frustrated. If we notice a trembling voice, sweating and defensive body language, someone might be feeling scared or anxious. If we notice smiles, laughter and a relaxed body language, the person might be happy about something in his/her life.

2. Act Early. Validate What You Notice
When we notice physical signs of emotional build up in others, we must act early and validate our assumptions. Obviously, we can’t read another’s mind so whatever we assume about another’s emotional state might or might not be true. So the most prudent way is to state our assumption as just that, and ask the other person for validation.

For example – If your colleague has been quiet and detached since a few days, you can approach them and say – “I see that you have been quiet lately. You seem a bit tensed too. Am I right? Is there something which I don’t know, or can help with?” Never walk up to someone and pass a judgement, “Why are you sad? What’s upsetting you?”

Remember our assessments about others’ emotional state are just that – assessments. Mistaking them for truth could trigger an emotional reaction and make them defensive, which we don’t want to. What works for me is to state my assessment tentatively, and to always ask for verification.

3. Listen And Acknowledge. Don’t Judge And React

It is only human to be emotional. When someone opens up about their emotions to you, it is an act of courage. Don’t dishonour that act by rushing to judgement or suggestion. Just like our own emotions, acknowledge them by listening and understanding their point of view. Try to stand in their shoes and sympathetically feel what they feel.

Challenging others’ emotions is often counter-productive and makes them feel alienated and disrespected. If their emotion is directed at you or they feel your behaviour led to the emotion, you might be tempted to justify yourself. But that never helps anyone. If you can stay calm and relaxed, any emotional attack will eventually diffuse itself.

Emotions are the result of an internal fire. Reacting emotionally only adds fuel to that fire. Instead, let we can let it run out of fuel by allowing others to express themselves fully while we listen empathically.

Remember, mastering your own emotions is a prerequisite before handling others' emotions.

Remember, mastering your own emotions is a prerequisite before handling others’ emotions.

4. Let The Storm Pass. Take A Time Out
When there is damage due to a weather related storm, we don’t rush out to do repairs while the storm is still on. We wait for the storm to pass before assessing the damage, and doing any repairs. Similarly, if we notice an emotional storm, it is always best to wait for it to pass before jumping in to help.

There have been many instances when I have been sucked in to respond to an emotional employee. I have always regretted it later as it only made the situation worse. Taking a time out often works for me. A few moments to breathe often allows both parties to stay with their emotions and come to peace with them.

I believe the best way to understand someone else’s emotions is to observe our own. Becoming aware of our own emotions can help us empathise with others. When we feel compassion for others’ emotional states, regardless of whether we agree with their reasons or not, then we are ready to take the next step — which is asking the right questions and coaching them.

5. Coach. Inquire. Ask the Right Questions
The next step is to ask coaching questions and help them understand their own emotions. By genuinely inquiring and listening to others, we can help them clarify their thoughts.

Coaching via asking open questions is about respecting people as individuals, and giving them a free choice to act in a way that is consistent with their values.

Coaching someone doesn’t mean fixing other’s problems. We don’t get to be a superhero through coaching. Coaching is about letting others find their own answers – ones they already know but have become masked behind their stirred emotions. Coaching begins with genuine care for your employees and colleagues. It is a skill which requires practice, and you get better at it with each conversation.

Depending on the emotion, the coaching questions you can ask will differ. Here are a few examples –
Sadness – What are you sad about? What did you lost? Why did that matter so much for you? How could you grieve or mourn for your loss? Is there something I can do for you to support you?
Fear – What is scaring you? What are the chances of that happening? How does that impacts you? How can you prepare better for it to minimise the damage? What else can you do to feel at peace?
Anger – Who hurt you? What boundaries did they cross? How can you express your complaint and act in a way consistent with your values? How can you put the issue behind? What would it take for you to forgive them, or let go?
Guilt – What did you do? What damage did it cause? Who have you hurt? How can you make amends? Have you apologised? How can you be at peace? Can you forgive yourself?

How to Deal with Your Emotions In The Workplace And Make Them Work For You

Fresh out of college, when I started to work professionally as a 21 year old, I dived into work passionately and emotionally. Not only did I do great work during that year, I also had a lot of fun with my team, many of whom are still my good friends. I was emotionally attached to the work and the people around me, and I considered that a strength at that time.

Not soon after, I had my first performance appraisal along with my friends (colleagues). Very soon, things weren’t as simple and fun as words like bonus, promotions and salary increments entered the vocabulary. Emotions flared, arguments ensued, and I had a hard time dealing with my emotions. I gave into the temptation of reacting emotionally a few times and strained my relationships with some people.

After a few such incidents, I started to consider my emotions a weakness and shut myself down, creating personal and professional boundaries in the workplace. I am glad that phase didn’t last very long.

Today, after working for over 12 years in different companies and across continents, I consider emotions an integral part of the workplace, and they can be very powerful if we know what to do with them.

Below are a few of my observations about dealing with our emotions at work :-

Every Emotion Tells Us What We Care About
When I formed great friends during my first year at work, my emotions (of joy) were telling me I care about trust and honesty. Later when I was angry and felt being wronged, my emotions were telling me I cared about everyone being treated fairly and respectfully. And when that expectation was not met, it gave rise to the frustration and anger.

The more attention we pay to our emotions, the more aware we can be of what they are trying to tell us. We can then reflect upon and listen to what they are telling us, and then still act in a way which is consistent with our values and long term objectives.

"We gain the strength of the temptation we resist." Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emotions Are Always Valid. The Stories Behind Them Might Not Be
There are no right and wrong emotions. There are no positive and negative emotions. Our emotions are always valid, and an inevitable part of being human. But we can examine the stories behind our emotions to separate the useful facts from false beliefs. Each emotion can tell us about something significant in our lives, but only if we are willing to examine the stories behind them objectively.

For example – I felt angry and frustrated once when I didn’t get an expected bonus. In this case I embraced the emotion without denial and examined the assessments behind it. I believed I had performed very well and shared the same with my manager. It was then that I got some feedback which made me aware of the gaps in my performance, and which I could improve upon. Thus I came to the realisation that while my emotion was valid, the story behind it lacked evidence and was not well grounded in facts.

My manager understood my concerns and it strengthened our relationship. He also promised me to deliver any such feedback earlier the next time. In the end, it prevented me from reacting impulsively and judging others, which would have not done any good for both me and my team.

I have learned that we can always witness our emotions as they arise instead of being sucked in their gravitational power and respond impulsively.

Emotions Need To Be Expressed. Without Explosion or Repression
According to Daniel Goleman, the capacity to subordinate immediate gratification to long term objectives is the most important psychological skill. All emotions lead to one or the other impulse to act, which often are harmful to us in the long term. At such moments, we need to take the driver’s seat and prevent our emotions from taking over. Emotions are very good messengers but very bad masters.

Just like tying a wild horse only infuriates him, repressing our emotions never works. When we do so, we end up suffering inside while putting up a brave face on the outside. By repressing, we are bound to explode sooner or later and it also results in stress which can end up impacting our health. Shouting at others (explosion), or sulking in silence (repression) never solves any problem. It often only makes it worse.

Emotional Intelligence involves expressing our emotions, without repression or explosion. If we can understand our emotions and the stories behind them as a third party observer, we can accept them fully without abdicating our responsibility to them. We can then choose to act according to our values – even in the face of failure and disappointment. We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can always act in ways congruent to our values.

“To increase your effectiveness, make your emotions subordinate to your commitments.” -Brian Koslow

Give Up Your Need to Be Right

The reason we are so tempted to react impulsively to an emotion is because it provides our ego instant gratification. When we shout and explode in anger, it makes us right and the other person wrong. Even if we know it is harmful to us in the long term, it gives us an immediate boost of righteousness. To handle our emotions well, we have to give up our need to be right all the time. We have to give up the temptation to “win” in every conversation and situation.

I feel that we do our best work when we are emotionally engaged. We are our most creative and productive selves when we feel emotionally safe and don’t have to put on a mask at work. However, if we don’t know how to handle our emotions and give in to impulsive responses, we can do more harm than good.

To sum it up :-

  • When we are happy on a successful result, an impulsive reaction could be to over-promise in excitement. But a conscious expression of happiness would be to just celebrate and acknowledge the hard work.
  • When we are sad on experiencing a loss, an impulsive reaction could be resignation and cynicism about the future. But a conscious expression of sadness would be to just grieve and acknowledge your loss.
  • When we are scared and fearful, an impulsive reaction could be to shut down and seek protection. But a conscious expression of fear would be to take a step back, assess the situation properly and then act with courage.
  • When we feel anger and frustration, an impulsive reaction could be to explode or repress our feelings. But a conscious expression of anger would be to make a complaint and sharing our concerns.
  • When we feel guilt after a mistake, an impulsive reaction could be to beat ourself up and sulking in shame. But a conscious expression of guilt would be to make a sincere apology and repair the broken trust with a new promise for the future.

5 examples to show how our environment influence our behaviour?

Our behaviour is the most important thing. The way we interact with others, react to situations and go through our daily chores eventually makes us the person we are. Be it our work life or personal life, our surroundings shape our thoughts and our actions originate from our thoughts. Our actions / behaviour actually shape the way people think about us, or whether we succeed or fail. For example, having lived in both Bangalore and Delhi, I can say the weather does have a big effect on me. It is much easy to get angry / shout at one and all in the sultry hot delhi weather. Even if you are not angry, it is very easy to lose your temper on the slightest provocation. But if you are greeted by a cool breeze whenever you get out (as in Bangalore), you tend to become happy even if you were in a bad mood earlier. The point is, our surroundings, whether natural or chosen, tend to have an effect on our personality and our day to day behaviour.

I am listing 5 examples how we can choose to surround ourselves with different things and how can it bring out our best or worst –

1. Want to be creative, surround yourself with art – If you are in a job where you are required to come up with creative ideas or just want to improve your creativity, surround yourself with art. Keep in touch with what is happening in the art world, and look out for creative advertisements, paintings, or any other form of art. Slowly, you will start appreciating work of other creative people and get your mind working. You will desire to do something on the same lines, and this will get you started. And continuously following up on different forms of art can give you ideas which you can apply in your area of interest.

2. If you live near or visit places where you will find fast food restaurants or advertisements about fast food, you will end up craving for that burger or french fries. Burger and French Fries do taste good (though not healthy) so our mouth will start lickering and our subconscious mind will want us to have it. And if you are hungry at that time, the craving might get to you and you might end up eating fast food instead of doing what you should be. I am thinking of going to a MacDonald today as I am writing this piece, and I need to move on to the next point before I head to grab my fries. (Unfortunately, a MacD joint is just across the street where I live)

3. Expose yourself to metrics about your work or business or performance and you’ll work to improve them. Metrics, and depicting them by graphs and other forms of pictorial representation give us a sense of how we are doing and how we should be doing. If we keep track of such metrics, we will work on improving them. It is the same reason schools and colleges have marks or grades so that people know what to measure and how to improve on those metrics. Collecting metrics is a qualitative way of improving stuff that is otherwise difficult to measure, and hence easy to ignore. If you want to improve something, find a way to measure it and surround yourself with info about it and you will see yourself working to improve it.

4. If you see a lot of negative emotions in your daily life, you will tend to react to situations with a negative bend of mind. If you see people getting angry at each other, you might end up justifying their actions and find reasons to get angry yourself. If you fear something, then thinking about it or being in a vicinity which reminds you of your fear, you will tend up acting more reluctantly on matters you would have been confident otherwise. So if you tend to be around people experiencing negative emotions like frustation, worry, anger, disappointment, be aware that they can spread to you very easily.

5. If you ineract with people making smart decisions, you will also take interest in it and learn from them. You will slowly and surely be able to understand how to handle different situations and how to go about in your decision making process. Your thought process will start reflecting the people who you spend time with. You will understand why they took a certain decision and will try to learn from it.
Eventually, it is a choice of how we choose our surroundings. If you want a change in yourself, then just spend time with people / situations where you see that change. This holds true for both negative and positive thoughts.