The Smiling Face of Anger: Emotional Intelligence in Action

 

One of my favourite parts of Inside Out is when Joy and Sadness are not at Headquarters leaving Disgust, Fear and Anger at the control console.  As Anger comes up with various ideas such as stealing the credit card of Riley’s mother, he puts on a wicked smile.

Recently Inc published an interesting article about how Warriors Coach Steve Kerr Just Showed a Completely Different Side of Emotional Intelligence when during a match he disagreed angrily with a referee’s call and when they finally gave a technical foul against their opponents suddenly switched modes and smiled at the opposition coach across the court (the clip in the article is most revealing). 

The author, Justin Bariso, argues that Steve Kerr is demonstrating emotional intelligence in this case and I agree with him.  While most would argue that the emotionally intelligent people control their emotions, those leaders with high emotional intelligence know that anger and confrontation can be very useful tools. Hi EQ leaders are willing to engage, when necessary in conflict and confrontation.  Many people believe that to get along you go along.  This belief is inculcated from an early age.  However, leaders have discovered that conflict will often provide you far more power than pliability and this clip is a wonderful example.

Bariso argues that Kerr has an immediate emotional reaction to the ref's call. He could rein that reaction in and respond very calmly, or perhaps not at all but believes that he will get a more desirable result by wearing his anger on his sleeve.  Not only does he earn a technical foul but he shows his players that he is fully committed and how seriously they should be taking this game.  It is vital that the players feel the coach supports them and is willing to fight for them when they are being treated unfairly (which was the case in this instance).

However do not think that this is just emotional control.  When Kerr was a player he was famous as a calm, collected, and clutch shooter who made shots when they counted most--for a number of different teams.  Kerr, like many sportspeople, has a lot of Hustler component in his temperament.  Yes they want to win, but they love being in a position where they can both put on an act and then come through with clutch plays under pressure.  Hustlers just love playing games.

5 Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace???

I recently came across this blog by Ken Sterling: 5 Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

The article is similar to many in the emotional intelligence area and contains what I believe are many of the same mistakes.  Let us look at the suggestions that Ken Sterling makes:

1.        Avoid the Negatives – Starting with your Own

The intermingling of emotional intelligence with positive thinking is perhaps the most common mistake made by many supposed EQ experts.  The typical mantra is that bad feelings can cloud judgment and overwhelm you, so managing them is a matter of positive thinking.  The irony is that this is exactly the opposite what two of the founders of Emotional Intelligence, David Caruso and Peter Salovey preach.  In their book, The Emotionally Intelligent Manager: How to Develop and Use the Four Key Emotional Skills of Leadership the authors stress how wrong it is to be always positive and for example going into a budget review meeting or new project meeting you should allow negative emotions to dominate. 

Similarly the film, Inside Out, makes a similar point.  You should not try to eliminate Sadness from your emotions by always being Joyful but remember Sadness is a necessary and valuable part of life, and integral to making good decisions.

2.      Make Connections

I could not agree more with this point.  However while Sterling talks about digital connections I think what is important is face-to-face connections.  If you are going to digitally connect with someone use Facetime or Skype in the beginning.  I semi-retired in June 2007 but every day I try to participate in some form of face to face networking, be it golf, bridge or going to networking event in the CBD.  When my wife and I go out to dinner and see young couples scrolling through their smart phones during the meal we weep.  Mind you at home my wife spends more time talking to the cat than to me.

3.      Trust Others

I am first to admit that it is fantastic if you have a trusting relationship with another person and it is the key to a successful marriage.  However to simplistically trust others will lead you to ruin.  There are people and cultures in this world that are not based on trust.  If you visit China, you must remember the Chinese lie about everything all the time and there is no stigma against lying. It is as common and as acceptable as drinking water.  Begin your visit with that viewpoint and you will have a great time.

Why I love the Humm-Wadsworth  is that it is the only profiling system that includes a component that recognises corporate psychopaths.  About 14% of the population contain a higher than average Hustler component and you need to recognise these people and have the social skills to deal with them.  Fail to do so can lead to much regret later in life.

4.      Don’t Act Too Quickly

We all know that haste makes waste and when looking at investments for example you need to consider the trade-off between risk and reward.  However there are some people in life who are quick and decisive.  If you procrastinate with them, they will soon disrespect you.  The problem is that these people generally rise to positions of decision making.  So acting cautiously during initial meetings will only alienate them which is not the emotionally intelligent way.

5.      Make Work Fun and Challenging

I could not agree more.  Humour is a critical part of humanity.  I never forgot the first advice given to me when I began my career as a salesperson.  “The only thing more contagious than enthusiasm is the lack of it.”

6.      When in Doubt… Breathe

This is again very good advice.  While we cannot control many parts of our autonomic nervous system, such as digestion, heart rate, and body temperature, the one thing we can control is our own conscious breathing.  It is good to practice the following breathing technique whenever you are feeling anxious or stressed. 

    Inhale through your nose for a count of 4.

    Hold that breath for a count of 4.

    Slowly exhale through your mouth for a count of 4.

    Hold the empty breath for a count of 4.

Finally if you want to be seen as emotionally intelligent do not in an article titled 5 Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace list six ways.  It demonstrates you cannot count and destroys your credibility.

Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence

I have just returned from a three week trip to India, a country famous for its diversity of religions.  One fact that did surprise me was that although Buddism started in India, and Ashoka, India’s first unifying emperor, heavily promoted the religion, it is now practised by only 1% of the population.  We visited Sarnath, about 9km from Varanasi, where Budda preached his first sermon.  The site was filled with Sri Lankan, Thai, Japanese and Korean Buddhist pilgrims but the saris were non-existant.

In contrast to India, Buddhism or should I say Buddhist principles, are increasingly gaining popularity particularly in California  See for example this New Yorker article about Andy Puddicome, an Englishman and a former Buddhist monk, who via an App, HeadSpace, teaches short form meditation based on Buddhist techniques.  The Headspace App launched in January 2012 has been downloaded 3 million times.  Headspace does have critics.  One of my favourite quotes from the article:  “It would be as if somebody went to the Catholic Church and said, ‘I don’t buy all this stuff about Jesus and God, but I really dig this Communion ritual. Would you just teach me how to do that bit? Oh, and I want to start a company marketing wafers.’ ”

One of the big supporters of Andy Puddicome has been The Huffington Post.  Imagine my surprise when The Huffington Post recently published an article by Ron Purser and Edward Ng questioning the practice of mindfulness:  Cutting Through the Corporate Mindfulness Hype.  The article questions the scientific validity of Emotional Intelligence icons such as Daniel Goleman’s book and Google’s “Search Inside Yourself“ flagship corporate mindfulness training program.  Admittedly the article has a Marcusian flavour but the questions asked about scientific validity and reliability need to be answered. (It was a Purser tweet that supplied the photo.)

I think it is the Greeks who had the answer.  Inscribed on the walls of the Great Temple at Delphi were the two great commands of Greek life: "Know thyself" and "Everything in moderation."  These two commands are the emotionally intelligence way to developing mindfulness.  Rather that trying to control your transient emotions via mediation you would much better off understanding your core emotional drives.  Your core emotions are driven by your temperament – what you are genetically born with.  Based on a study of 11,000 identical twins nature is around twice as important as nurture.  I have found the Humm-Wadsworth model of seven core emotions the most practical tool for people to use and once understood (takes a day) dramatically lifts their emotional intelligence.  If you want to learn about the Humm download a free white paper on using Emotional Intelligence in either selling or management .  http://www.emotionalintelligencecourse.com/eq-free-white-papers/

Book Review A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Ghaemi

In this book Ghaemi puts forward an hypothesis that he calls The Inverse Law of Sanity.  According to him most of our leaders are exceedingly sane men such as Neville Chamberlain who in times of normality perform well.  However in times of crisis display such people demonstrate lacklustre leadership.  Instead in such times the best leaders are those with mood disorders.  Ghaemi argues his case using such leaders as Abraham Lincoln, Gen. William T. Sherman, Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ted Turner among others.  In particular Ghaemi contends these leaders owe much of their success because they were suffering some form of Bipolar Personality Disorder, either the full blown disorder itself or some milder variant such as hyperthymia (mild mania), dysthymia (mild depression), or cyclothymia (alternating between lows and highs in mood and energy.

The core of mania is impulsivity with heightened energy. Increased levels of mania usually mean creativity and sociability but if it is too pronounced it can lead to irritability, promiscuous sexuality, and lavish spending (eg Kennedy and Roosevelt).  On the other hand according to Ghaemi depressed people are not depressed because they distort reality; they are depressed because they see reality more clearly than other people do.  Depressed people also have more empathy, resilience and creativity.  I can agree with empathy but with regard to resilience I beg to differ.  It is people with low levels of the Depressive component in their personality who have high resilence.  Also it is mania that leads to creativity (the flight of ideas) not depression.

As someone who promotes the Humm-Wadsworth model of temperament this was a compelling book to read.  Temperament is how your genetic make-up defines how you react emotionally.  The Humm-Wadsworth says that your reactions are determined on where you fall in the spectrum of the seven most common mental illnesses.  It is here that I have difficulty with the book.  Ghaemi appears to see everything through the lens of Manic-Depression.  

Kretschmer was the first person to define the Cyclothymic (ie Manic-Depressive) mental disorder but he also defined another disorder, the Schizothymic (or Autistic-Paranoid).  Surely the one characteristic of all leaders is high levels of paranoia.  Andy Grove said it best in his eponymous book: Only the Paranoid Survive.  I find it difficult to accept Ghaemi’s thesis that Nixon was a homoclite or a person or with normal behaviour.  Like all successful politicians Nixon was well to right of the Paranoid spectrum with an overpowering desire to compete and win.  His downfall could be attributed to a severe paranoia for chasing demons that maybe did not exist and resorting to tactics that were not necessary.

On the other hand I found many of the biographies very interesting and discovered much.  Non USA citizens in particular will learn a lot about the USA reading this book.  Ghaemi himself was born in Iran and moved to the USA when he was five years old.  Dr. Ghaemi is a world-class psychiatrist; and is one of the world’s experts on issues of mood disorder so his emphasis on Manic-Depression is understandable.  No matter how hard we try, avoiding confirmation bias is almost impossible.