Emotions - At Work
I recently attended a fabulous presentation by Dan Hill, author of Emotionomics. He gave very specific ideas for how to improve your team members’ engagement, particularly around meetings (even remotely), by focusing on their emotions.
One thing to note: Only 12% of managers are truly good at emotional intelligence — knowing themselves and their reactions and being able to read what their people want and need. (This means you probably are not one of them, even if you think you are…) On the plus side, emotional intelligence can be trained/learned. We can get better at it, and we can help our people get better at it!
I’ve attached a link to Dan’s short talk (15-20 minutes) below. I highly recommend watching the whole thing (it’s SO good!), but, if you just can’t wait, here are a few of his best ideas:
Psychological Commutes — With remote work, many of us have lost the delineation between our work day and the rest of our life. Even if we continue to work remotely, we can add in “psychological commutes”, rituals that tell our minds and bodies that we’re leaving one environment and entering another. This can help us be more present at work and with our families and friends.
Anger — We all have all the feelings. Some of us are better than others at being intentional about how we share those feelings. It’s good to remember that there’s nothing wrong with anger, even if it can be intimidating or scary. In the work setting, anger (and it’s more subtle siblings frustration and annoyance) usually indicates there is a barrier to progress—and specifically that the feeling of the anger senses that barrier is unfair in some way. You can address anger at work by helping to identify the barriers and move them!
Sadness — Dan explains why sadness is ok and can actually be useful. (I will note that crying and sadness are not the same thing. We can cry and not be sad (I cry when I’m really frustrated), and we can be sad but not cry (this is when that emotional intelligence comes in handy!).) Sadness makes us slow down. It can be valuable and productive if we take the time to reflect and to have insights—and to then make a plan to deal with the situation.
Dan Hill’s presentation on employee engagement - https://www.ignited.global/ihma/blog/emotionomics-how-improve-engagement