The Emotionally Intelligent Manager [Electronic resources] : How to Develop and Use the Four Key Emotional Skills of Leadership نسخه متنی

Emotional Blueprint in Action

Keeping a team together and motivated is one of the most difficult tasks for managers. This task is made even more complex and challenging when the team experiences change. The Emotional Blueprint can help us understand better how to effectively manage a team through such turbulent times. Consider, for example, the situation that one of our managerial clients, Don, experienced when his team went through a significant change.

The Manager Who Did Not Manage Emotions

Don was a great manager. He was extremely effective in many ways, as reflected by his own job satisfaction, the satisfaction of the people reporting to him, and his ability to complete projects on a schedule that met his clients’ needs. That is why Don was initially quite surprised when his operations group at a high-powered Wall Street firm suddenly experienced an unanticipated change: a noticeable drop in morale and productivity.

Recounting the history of his group, Don related that some problems had arisen during and after a partial staff relocation eight months earlier. In his inimitable, hands-on manner, Don had addressed each of these problems, resolved the issue, and moved on. He continued his detailed analysis of the group, discussing other problems they had experienced, the nature of their projects, and a host of other, possible causes for the precipitous productivity drop.

The list of potential causes was long, but Don dismissed each one, and it did seem that none of these could have had such a major negative impact on this previously high-functioning team. Don’s analytical skills were as strong as his managerial and technical skills, and he was quite open to possible personal failings. His systematic analysis was detailed, rational, and logical—and wrong.

While readily addressing the concrete concerns, Don failed to conduct an emotional analysis of the situation. The problems that arose after the move—problems with new parking spaces, different tax forms, faulty air conditioning—were actually symptoms of something else. The “something else” in this case turned out to be the feelings of the department members who now had a shorter commute but no longer felt part of the community. The something else was also the feeling of loss experienced by the people who stayed behind in the original Wall Street offices.

It was only with the accurate identification of the root cause of the morale and productivity problem that corrective action could be taken and a positive result achieved. It was only when Don addressed the real issues that he was able to turn the situation around by meeting the deeper, unspoken needs of his staff. Some people believe that it’s not in a manager’s job description to have to deal with people’s feelings (unless, of course, you’re a psychologist!). We argue that this is exactly what a manager’s job description should include: identifying how people feel, using their feelings to direct their thinking, understanding the reasons for these feelings, and managing to stay open to the data in feelings and use the information to make optimal decisions.

Don’s Emotional Blueprint

Don was a smart guy. Because our intelligent approach to emotions does not place analytical abilities, or IQ, in opposition to emotional intelligence, we see Don’s “smarts” as a benefit, not as a handicap in his acquisition and use of the skills of emotional intelligence.

In fact, Don turned out to be a quick study in the realm of emotions. With a bit of guidance and information, he was readily able to use our Emotional Blueprint. This is what the Blueprint consists of (see Exhibit 2.1).

If you were in Don’s shoes, you might first tune in to the feelings of the group as well as your own. Tuning in is only part of this step, because even though you’re tuned in, you may be tuned to the wrong channel! In other words, it takes more than paying attention. You have to pay attention to the right things and draw the correct conclusions. What would you learn? You might be able to tell from gestures, tone of voice, forced smiles, and the like that people are feeling down. Morale seems to be sinking like a stone.

Your next step is to use these feelings to help guide your thinking. For Don, it means that he feels what his team feels and so sees the world and feels the world through their eyes. He senses that his people are giving up and perhaps losing hope. They are focused on problems, on what is wrong with the organization. It’s not a pleasant feeling, nor is it encouraging, but it is what it is: an accurate appraisal of a worsening situation.

Don has to engage in some heavy analytical lifting now. He must analyze why his group is losing all hope. What is the source of their feelings? What happened? Perhaps even more important, Don has to predict the future and figure out how people will feel in the future. Because he is analytical by nature, Don can apply his sophisticated what-if reasoning skills (we talk more about “ whatifs” in Chapter Five) to the situation and determine that if the situation continues, people may give up, be motivated to leave the organization, or fall prey to despair or anger.

The situation isn’t going to get better if Don continues his present-course. That seems clear. The fourth emotionally intelligent step Don takes may be the most difficult one of all. When we are feeling lousy, we try to push those feelings and the accompanying thoughts away. We don’t like feeling bad, so we do almost anything not to feel bad. Unfortunately for Don, he must stay open to these negative, difficult feelings. To do otherwise means he is not doing his job, or not doing his job well, in any case.

These feelings are the crux of the matter; they hold the key to the team problem that Don is facing. He guards against suppressing his and his group’s frustration and sadness, and he integrates this information into his decision making and behavior. This is where Don has a moment of insight and realizes that he must directly address how his people feel about the move, not just the concrete issues that are disguising the real problem of loss. Being an emotionally intelligent manager means that there will be times, perhaps plenty of times, when you must open yourself up to strong feelings, both positive and negative. Before allowing this to happen though, it is essential that you develop the skills that allow you to fully engage these strong feelings and not to get overwhelmed by them. This book can help you develop this skill.

Don’s action plan, based on his Emotional Blueprint, is shown in Exhibit 2.2. As you can see, Don has to alter his strategy and behavior, using his reanalysis of the situation and his correct identification of the root cause of the team’s performance problems.

This is what emotionally intelligent managers do. Do they walk through every decision step-by-step in this fashion? Probably not. But it is the way they think and feel and act.

The exciting thing about this Emotional Blueprint is that we can provide you with the drafting tools you need to create your own blueprint for each important situation you face. We can teach you to see and feel the world in a different manner. It is not easy to do, but even if you simply start by asking these questions, you’ll come out ahead. (When you are ready, Appendix 2 provides detailed Emotional Blueprint questions.)

The world of emotion is complex and confusing, but the Emotional Blueprint can help you navigate your way through the turbulence. To get the most out of our intelligent approach to emotions, and the Emotional Blueprint, we’ll share critical information about each of the four emotional skills, show you how to develop each of the skills, and then show you how to apply the skills to your daily work-life. In the next several chapters, we take a look at each of the four abilities in greater detail.