Have you given thought to Emotional Intelligence? It’s how you manage and process your feelings, and how you relate to other people’s emotions as well.
I’ve always been amazed by the tacit corporate rule that you don’t show feelings in business. How do humans create an on/off switch to control their innate behaviors? (Short answer… and long answer: they don’t!) Since we live in the same bodies 24/7, how about we acknowledge we feel feelings? I mean, if you try to disagree, then you’d say… We don’t feel feelings? Sorry, that’s not an option. So let’s all agree we do.
What we can choose is how we process our feelings and how we engage with people around us. TIME posted an article Why Emotional Intelligence Is Needed More Than Ever at Work that reads like a breath of fresh air. Johnson & Johnson recognized sales slipping when their employees did not engage respectfully with customers (sales people playing on phones while visiting doctors’ offices? Showing up during medical procedures? Ick.)
Johnson & Johnson turned to outside assistance and had an app designed to educate their sales people. Which makes sense, because this is tricky— how to you navigate telling people they’re not sensitive enough to both their own emotions and their surroundings… especially when it’s clear the impetus to create change came from decreased sales numbers? Sounds a little insensitive when it’s framed that way!
How about we think about emotional intelligence as a skill for well-rounded people, both inside and outside the business world?
If the up-side to having this skill is better relationships and more self awareness, that’s an all-around win. I see it as an opportunity to improve familial interactions as well as more broadly in the greater community. Empathy can make us more curious about how other people experience the same environment we share. This can lead to wholistic thinking about creating more valuable shared space. (It sounds a little pie-in-the-sky, but also genuinely do-able. Thing big, start small! If you’re interested in more self awareness on an individual level, there are apps for you— I have no horse in this race, no money to gain) but I can attest, this is pretty great— Noom Mood.)
Sometimes the first step is the most impressive- give this a try. Take a moment, pause to hear how someone feels (that includes yourself!) Perhaps you’ll feel a little something you hadn’t before.
Just a moment today. Stop and listen.
great questions → impressive solutions