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Chapter One, the ability to identify accurately how other people feel is critical, not just to success and happiness but perhaps to our very survival. This point was dramatically illustrated (with examples from many different species) by Charles Darwin in his wonderful book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. [1] Recognizing the difference between a stranger who is friendly and ready to help you and a stranger who is unfriendly and ready to attack you can spell the difference between living another day and ending up dead.
In our Emotional Blueprint, identifying emotions is ability number one. This ability consists of a number of different skills, such as accurately identifying how you feel and how others feel, sensing emotion in art and music, expressing emotions, and reading between the lines. Perhaps most critical is the ability to detect real versus fake emotions.[2]
Accurate Awareness
Without emotional awareness, how can we distinguish whether we are feeling tired or sad, happy or nervous? Awareness is the essential building block for emotional intelligence. The ability to introspect has been highly touted among selfhelp advocates as a critical component of personal growth and development. What most self-help gurus fail to understand is that introspection and reflection can lead to worsening mood and can result not in insight but in feelings of depression and shame.[3] Awareness is certainly an important component of emotional intelligence, but it must be accurate and not obsessive. We must know how we feel and be able to label our feelings appropriately if we wish to better understand ourselves and others. When we attempt to determine how we feel, we have to be fully aware of gradations and shifts of feeling. It’s important to know whether we’re frustrated during a sales presentation, or bored, or just tired. This information provides insights about the sales message itself.
Expression of Emotion
If emotions serve as a sophisticated but efficient signaling system, then we not only need to be able to decipher signals but send them as well. Expressing emotion is relatively easy, but doing so accurately is somewhat more difficult. Some people are “hard to read,” and the signals they send are either not clear or too subtle to be detected. Others are purposefully unexpressive. They may feel that it is inappropriate to express themselves, or they may be afraid of emotional expression for more personal reasons. In this case, they have the ability to express emotion, but they choose not to do so. Cultural and organizational display rules, which we discussed earlier, also come into play. The inability to accurately express emotion means that we do not send signals about ourselves and, as a result, our needs may not be met. If I am sad regarding a lost computer document that I required for a major meeting later that day, I need support at that time. My expression of sadness is likely to increase the chances of being supported, which, in this case, means someone taking time to help me recover the lost file. In another situation, if I am calm and at ease but communicate a message that says something different about my emotional state, another person may incorrectly perceive me as a threat and take action against that perceived threat. “I didn’t think he really cared” is something that many managers will say about an employee who masks his passion for the job.
The ability to communicate has survival value in other ways. Our interpersonal communications consist of both verbal and nonverbal cues. Our tone of voice, gestures, posture, and facial expressions are conduits for information. If the information enhances the verbal message, it is likely that the message will be communicated in a more accurate and meaningful way. Paul Ekman, a psychologist in the field of emotional expression, has studied people’s ability to express emotions. Even though emotional expression begins to develop in infancy,[4] Ekman finds that people differ greatly in their ability to express various emotions.[5]
Ability to Read People
Right now, you are feeling a certain way—perhaps content and satisfied. Then a colleague approaches you and asks why you look so unhappy; he asks what the problem is. In this case, your colleague’s perceptions are not accurate. He may definitely feel that you are unhappy, but if you are not, then his perceptions are off-base. The ability to read facial expressions and identify the emotion expressed in that face accurately is a core skill. This ability is essential to our interpersonal survival and, perhaps, to our physical survival as well. Emotions are a signaling system, and emotions contain important data, as we mentioned earlier. If we are unable to read these signals, then our data and information about a situation is either incorrect or flawed. Distinguishing between a person who is enraged and a person who is calm can make a critical difference in our own well-being. Determining friend from foe is only part of the importance of this ability. Perceiving emotion accurately allows us to approach a situation with some finesse.
By the way, it’s not just people who display emotion. Our fourskill model of emotional intelligence also posits that this ability extends beyond emotional displays to the perception of emotion in art forms such as music and sculpture and paintings. Art makes us think and feel. Art moves us, not just intellectually but emotionally as well. The power of music to convey emotion is well understood, or rather, well “felt” by most of us. Think of the chill of suspense that certain musical scores provide or the happiness you feel listening to certain tunes. Also consider the billions of dollars that are spent on advertising, trade shows, logo design, and branding. These seek to influence how people feel about a product, as well as how they think about it.[6]
Ability to Read Between the Lines
Accurate emotional identification also means that you can’t be easily fooled by people who are expressing an emotion they don’t actually feel.[7] Although it is very easy to be able to smile on demand— witness many photographs with everyone smiling—it is harder to create a true smile if you are not feeling happy. Sometimes, people who are not emotionally aware pay a little bit of attention to facial and emotional expressions—just enough to see that there is an emotional display. What they miss, however, are the subtle cues that help to distinguish genuine from manipulated expressions of emotion. And sometimes you may be paying a great deal of attention to emotional displays but still misread the emotion. Some managers who don’t pick up on emotional cues at all, especially false cues, accept others at face value. They don’t go beyond the surface expression of emotion because they don’t see any need to do so. The result is that they see a smile, but it doesn’t occur to them that it might be a forced smile—one in which the mouth is smiling but the eyes are not crinkling as they should. This leads them to an incorrect conclusion, wrong basic assumptions, and faulty emotional information. [1]Darwin, C. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. (Definitive edition with introduction, afterword, and commentaries by Paul Ekman). New York: Oxford University, 1998. (Originally published 1872.) [2]For a more thorough discussion of identifying emotions, see Ekman, P. Emotions Revealed. New York: Times Books, 2003. [3]See, for example, Nolen-Hoeksema, S. Women Who Think Too Much. New York: Henry Holt, 2003. [4]Rosenstein, D., and Oster, H. “Differential Facial Response to Four Basic Tastes in Newborns.” Child Development, 1988, 59, 1555–1568. [5]Ekman, P. Emotions Revealed. New York: Times Books, 2003. [6]See, for example, Gobe, M. Emotional Branding. Oxford, England: Windsor, 2001; Martins, J. S. The Emotional Nature of a Brand. Sao Paulo, Brazil: Marts Plan Imagen, 2000. [7]Ekman, P. Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Marriage, and Politics. New York: Norton, 1985.
