What kind of emotional experience do others get from you?

 What kind of emotional experience do others get from you? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

 As we discuss the topic of "People Skill at the workplace," let us discuss some insights on improving people's skill management techniques.
 
Before getting into the techniques, let us understand some of the principles of human emotions.

The ultimate purpose of people skills is to get things done and maintain a high quality of relationships.

Lesson 2: 
 
By nature, as human beings, we are always keen on either maximizing pleasure or minimizing pain in any actions and interactions with others.
 
Pleasure includes the feeling of pride, happiness, enthusiasm, fun, respect, joy, learning new things, and any other positive emotions.

Pain includes guilty, sadness, embarrassment, shame, feeling inferior, and any other non-positive emotions.

We always try to maximize pleasure and avoid pain.

For example,

At a personal level, when we take a task, we would like to complete it to get the most satisfaction from it, and we do not want it to get incomplete and then get the feeling of regret. For instance, when we make mistakes, we tend to explain as our mind does not accept the pain of realizing our incapability of not making things right. To avoid emotional pain, we justify with logic. That is the nature of us.

Similarly, at an interpersonal level, people are looking for gaining positive emotional experience from the work (like pride, appreciation, empowerment, learning something new) rather than non-positive experience from the work (like getting blamed, frustrated, feeling low, etc.).

To sum up, either at a self-level or an interpersonal level, everyone desires to maximize pleasure, minimize pain, or even avoid the pain.

If we want to improve people management skills, we need to remember this principle.

Also, we need to ask ourselves is, what kind of emotional experience are we giving to the people when they interact or work with us?

Are we giving others the most positive emotional experience, like respect, making others feel good, secure, comfortable to express, or another way?

When we enhance the positive emotional experience of others, we strengthen our people skills, that is, getting things done and improving the quality of relationships.
 
Let us learn some more principles next week.

Stay safe till then!

Sense of achievement

 Sense of achievement  

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Recently, in one of the management review forums, one manager narrated his daily work experience and asked the following question, which I felt is relevant for the topic "achievement orientation."
 
The question is, “I am working hard throughout the day in the office, doing many activities and being busy throughout the day, still at the end of the day, i do not get the satisfaction that I did achieve something.”Why don't i get the sense of fulfillment?
 
I am sure most of us relate ourselves as we might have experienced sometimes.
 
What could be the reason for not feeling the sense of achievement?
 
My view is that lack of FOCUS on the priorities …. In an organizational setup, each role is expected to meet some of the priorities. Else, at the end of the day or eventually, at some period, we will feel, or others will perceive us that we are not achieving as expected.
 
Let me give an example,
 
If you are a functional finance head, your core priority or expectation from others is managing the fund flow in the organization seamlessly and looking at the opportunities for cash generation. Only when you have the clarity on the same and focus your energy, effort, time in achieving the core priorities, then only you feel the sense of achievement.

Alternatively, suppose you concentrate more on other non-core activities or working on others' priorities and being busy always, at the end of the day, despite your hard work, you feel a sense of non-achievement only. Here the issue is a lack of clarity on the priorities/expectation and lack of focus on the priorities.
 
The point is for any professional, depending on the position or role, we need to have
 

• Clarity on what we want or what is expected out of us
• Ability to focus on the priority
• Working on the priority and get the desired result.
• Feeling the sense of achievement.

 
Clarity and Focus on priority are much essential for getting a sense of achievement.

Just relate to your life experience and let me know your views!

Have a great week ahead.
 

How a Leader brings conviction to the team to achieve?

 How a Leader brings conviction to the team to achieve?  

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we discussed last week on the importance of personal conviction to achieve something in the workplace, two factors determine the conviction. One is the emotional part, and the other is the rational part.
 
The emotional part is bringing on the compelling need to achieve, and the rational part gives clarity on the path to move ahead. When both are ensured in any task, there is a high possibility to succeed. When either one of the parts is missing or not given appropriate weightage, there are high possibilities for slow progress or underperformance.
 
For example,
Generally, most of us take the goal of achieving physical fitness. But not all people succeed consistently. The reason is the lack of deep, compelling need. If we give ourselves that fitness is good for health, it won’t help push us to achieve. Alternatively, if we associate physical fitness with our survival or associate with family members, the probability of achieving the desired fitness level is high.

I had witnessed one of my relatives gave up some of his lifestyle habits when he was diagnosed with a life-challenging disease. The change happened because emotionally, there was a compelling need to change from a survival perspective. 

There is a high level of conviction to achieve when there is an emotional connection with any achievement goal and personal life like survival, pride, reputation, appreciation, monetary benefits, or growth.
 
The next aspect is that even though we have an emotional connection to achieve when there is a lack of clarity on attaining (to some extent), it likely affects the conviction. For example, one wants to become financially independent but does not know the methods, avenues, and environment. The rational part makes it less likely to bring orientation towards achievement.
 
Being aware of the importance of emotional and rational aspects towards achievement orientation, the leaders plan well when delegating the task. They bring the compelling need of any task to the team by connecting the benefits to them and available with the team for guidance/support during the journey to enable the team to perform better.
 
Hence, one has to ensure both emotional and rational parts are being addressed equally for any achievement orientation.

You can relate with your experience where you succeed in any task, and there could be a balanced mix of emotional and logical parts!

Have a great week ahead.

Commitment -Nature or Nurture?

 Commitment -Nature or Nurture? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

Last week, we ended up with one question, whether the personal commitment is an inborn quality or can be nurtured to any person?

 
For quite a long time, i use to observe and wonder how some people are committed to their work, being consistent. Also, i use to hear from business heads/managers that some people are not committed to the work or towards achievement. One question i always seek answers to is whether the commitment is naturally existed as inborn quality or being nurtured by the environment. 
 
I found some research studies on personality traits and the impact of genetics and the environment.

The finding summarised below for quick reference.
 

• People develop a strong identity as they age, and maturity brings a more significant commitment to whatever task they take. At a young age, people are exploring their identity. In this process, there is a perceived gap in the commitment of others.
• Even though some of the personality traits are inborn, those are not stable. Those are subject to environmental factors like those with whom they are associating and get influenced.
• Role clarity and continuity in the role bring more commitment than consistency in the environment.

The key learning for me is that both inborn and environmental matters in cultivating the commitment among the people in the workplace.

How can the leader interpret the above findings and apply them in the workplace?
 

• People are at different levels of evolution. Each one requires TIME to change. Let us give it.
• Leaders / Managers are role models in demonstrating commitment consistently. When people work under a committed person, eventually he/ she becomes, which I have witnessed in many places. For example, when the leader is committed to responding to customer complaints within 24 hrs, people under them also committed the same pace as i have witnessed in one of the organizations.
• Since people are struggling with their identity, role clarity, distractions, overnight success pressure, and dilemma,  the leader’s time in spending time with people brings change towards achievement commitment.
• People development is a nurturing process, and it is the role of the people manager.

We need to ask ourselves whether we are committed to people's development in the workplace!

How to be positive in a non-conducive workplace environment?

 How to be positive in a non-conducive workplace environment? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

In response to our last week's discussion on "Creating a conducive workplace environment for achievement orientation," one of the queries asked was " When the workplace environment is not conducive for achievement, how can we perform?"

As said, creating a conducive environment for achievement orientation is the primary responsibility of the leaders in the workplace. In the absence of it, it is challenging to perform and even manage the survival itself a challenge for most people. However, depends on our positions and the level of influential skill, anyone can initiate or bring some level of conduciveness for achievement orientation.

The answer could vary from person to person as it is purely from the perspective of how we wired our thought process towards work and self in the workplace.

As I fortunate to work with some bosses/colleagues who turnaround the toxic environment into a high-performance workplace. I observed some of the patterns or qualities they demonstrated. That may be the basis for reflecting your management style.
 
They focus more on their job and the contribution than to whom they are working for. They believe in the hard work and continue to strive for DOING. They believe that they stand out through their contribution.

They always incline to positively impact others through their behaviors, communication process or adding value to others whenever an opportunity arises.

They accept the situation and try to make a difference through their personal skill rather than blaming complaining about someone or past decisions.

They leverage the personal skill more than the position that makes them go beyond their boundary or levels to make things happen.

When they do it consistently, the negative bias people also turned to listen to them eventually.

I have been with some people who have turnaround the workplace environment from firefighting, blaming, excuse culture to the performance-oriented workplace only through their positive orientation and friendly, firm behavior.

The idea is irrespective of your power or position when we demonstrate the above qualities, there are possibilities of turning the situation favorable. Also, there is a high probability that we would be seen as lead or influential personalities.

It all depends on your energy level, your perspective on work and people, persistence in working in a non-conducive environment, and converting to your advantage as well as to organizational benefits.

When the possibility of turning into conducive is very low, we always choose to move out. That is the ultimate option available to anyone.

How leaders create a conducive environment for achievement orientation among people?

 How leaders create a conducive environment for achievement orientation among people? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

 

Last week, we discussed how an environment affects the individual in terms of his/ her thought process towards achievement orientation like “to be successful” or “not to be failed.”

Now, in an organizational setup, let us understand how influential managers/leaders create a conducive environment for his/her team towards achievement orientation.

As I observed, some of the effective managers/leaders have some typical working style patterns. They ensured that they are pushing the team towards achievement orientation by inculcating some of the following habits at the self-level or the organizational level.

                                           
 
Making the expectation clear:

First, leader/manager BRINGS CLARITY what they want and from whom they want it. They set the expectation clear among the team. When they are certain about what they want, from whom they expect, they become much focussed. When they communicate the expectation to other people, the other people are also working without any ambiguity. Only when the people have a dilemma about the direction, they slow down the execution speed, decision-making capability. When people know what is expected out of them, it puts them in the right direction.
 
Leaders ensure this first step by bringing role clarity, setting the targets and deployment to the right people,

Establishing a communication forum:

Once the expectation is set, the next thing an effective manager/ leader ensures that establishing communication forums for two-way communication. The communication forum is mainly for being in reality by everyone on the task. The communication forum could be exchanging information through various electronic channels on a fixed time interval or meeting face to face to review the progress. The advantage of establishing a communication forum is to get convinced about progress and ensure that all are on the same page.

Facilitation and feedback:

The next step is the leader believes more in facilitation than commanding to help the people arrive at the right solutions approach or right decisions as facilitation helps the people think and move confidently than in giving instruction mode. The advantage of facilitation is that the leader/manager's presence is not required when the people face a similar challenge. People learned to think from the leader/ manager's perspective.

Recognizing: 

This is one of the steps most people ignore or not giving much importance due to various reasons. That is, to recognize or appreciate the people for the effort and the result. Recognizing the work will reinforce the positiveness in the people's minds, which will help them replicate next time.

In a corporate environment, it is always a debate whether to appreciate the effort or the result. As I observed, most effective leaders recognize the people’s effort first, and then they concern about the result. They believe that eventually, the result would come once the effort is put in the right direction.
 
When we create an ecosystem, as mentioned above, with varying intensity levels depending on the task or complication of the task, people also orient themselves to achieve.

Environment triggers the behavior, and it is the primary responsibility of the manager /leader to create a conducive environment.!

Dealing with Anger

Dealing with Anger
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we outlined the importance of channelizing each emotion for positive turnout in the workplace and each emotion needs different strategies, now let us understand more about dealing with anger as an emotion.
 
When do we get angry at the workplace?

Most of the time, we do get angry when things are not going as we expect. Typically, the following are some of the scenarios we lose coolness or normal state and get into the agonized mood.

1. When someone repeatedly says something against our views, and we are in a situation neither to accept others' opinions nor in a position to convince others to our views.
2. When someone is pointing us for fault with or without logic, and we are in a position not to accept our failure openly. Also, not in a position to defend our case.
3. When we have higher expectations or standards on something or someone and, in reality, when we face less than expectation or standard, suddenly, the anger burst out.

You can think and relate some of your experiences where you get the anger.

In all the above situations, you can see some typical patterns as follows.

1.NON -ACCEPTANCE of the reality in a particular moment
2.Our INABILITY or lack of courage and skill to face (Helplessness)
3.Lack of patience to get the full picture
 
The internal pattern manifests outside either by way of shouting or abusing or hitting physically or going out of self-control.

Whether anger is bad all the times?
 
Anger is one of the natural emotions, and we can not outrightly say it is wrong. The anger becomes worthless only when it is used for silly reasons with the inappropriate people.

When anger is used for higher purposes with the right people, it turns out to be positive and the right people also perceive it in a proper perspective.

One of the best examples of converting the anger into the positive turnout would be Mahatma Gandhi's life as we read when he faced the humiliation by the British which turned out as anger. Instead of directing the anger to give it back either by way of verbal or physical violence against the British, he channelized the anger into a nonviolent momentum and created a new history.
 
When we read such a historical incident, we move on as extraordinary incidents.

But in a  day to day life, some effective people are good at channelizing their anger into a positive experience and let us discuss those real examples next week.!

(Appreciate your personal experience of how the anger impacts you at the workplace!)

 

Aware of Personal Values

Aware of Personal Values 
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

As we are learning some of the ways to be more aware of self, let us understand the power of personal values in decision making and managing our emotions in the workplace.

What is meant by personal values?

Values are things that we regard as very important for us. Some examples of values could be equality, honesty, learning, pride, effort, perseverance, loyalty, commitment, faithfulness, money, relationship, love, care, kindness, health, family, career and so on. Each one of us has some deep-rooted importance or values on the subconscious level, and it directs the emotions at an appropriate time.

We make decisions based on the values and we use them as a compass to enhance the positive emotions or to avoid negative emotions. When we have clarity on our core value, i.e., what is very much essential for us, that will help us to resolve any hidden conflicts, remove internal stress and outburst in any decisions.

For example,

You might have observed some people that they used to make quick decisions when it comes to career vs. family as they have clarity on what they want. Some take career growth over family, happy with that, and vice versa. Because they are clear about what is important for them, and they align the decision. When you force yourself to decide on against your internal value system, you get into the trap of value conflict, and that will affect your emotions severely.

A few years back, i  collaborated with a known person for the business. Within a month of working together, i  felt discomfort and developed internal stress as there was value conflict between us. I valued much on process, methodological working, slow  and my partner valued much on the result, speed and revenue generation. Within a short time, we closed the partnership deal. There is nothing wrong with the individual's choice of values; both are right. But when there is value conflict, it is not going to be beneficial to anyone in the long term.

You might have come across similar situations with your friends, family members, colleagues and the quality of the relationship is based on value alignment and value conflict.

The point is that being aware of personal values and value alignment is a very much important aspect for intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational harmony and growth.

When you are aware of your values, you will get clarity on your priorities and importance. This clarity will help you to make the right decisions and keeping your emotions in a positive mode.
 

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Action:
List down the important things for you and finally shortlist the TOP3 values. Check whether it is aligned with your aspirations and with others.
Finetuning and altering the values with the help of the coach will change the direction of life. 

Understanding more about YOU

Understanding YOU  
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

As we are aware that self-awareness will improve emotional intelligence at work. Before going into the next methodology of self-awareness, let us understand the rationale behind every behavior at the workplace and the inner personality with the following framework.
 
               
What we see externally is only BEHAVIOR, and if we would like to improve the positive or negative behavior for betterment, we need to work internally. As shown in the framework, the behavior is an outcome of internal emotions or feelings, and the emotions are the outcome of attitude towards work or life or anything. The attitude comes from our values and beliefs about work or life or anything. What resides is our real inner personality.
Overall if you would like to improve the management of your emotions at the workplace, you need to work on inner personality.

Let me narrate my personal experience in changing the behavior at the workplace as it may not be appropriate to take common experiences. You can relate to your own experiences for understanding the concept better.

When I was working as a project manager, in one instance, the project deliverables were about to fail. I lost my temper, behaved rudely with junior colleagues, which was immature and not at all acceptable in the professional environment by any justifications. However, i could narrate the reasoning behind unacceptable behavior through the framework.

The unacceptable behavior is an outcome of my internal emotions like fear of failing in the project, in turn, losing personal creditability. The fear comes from the attitude of looking at the work from a self point of view. The attitude was if something committed, it must be done at any cost. From where this attitude comes from? It comes from the values and beliefs that i was holding about myself and work. I valued more of pride in achievement, commitment to deliverables, and i believed that the project is a straight line like an operational task. I  wrongly believed that plan should not have any uncertainties. All those beliefs, values, attitudes, emotions result in the behavior.

If i  want to improve the behavior, then i should look at my false belief about the project nature,  self’s unrealistic expectation, attitude towards self and work, then only unreasonable fear of losing personal value with one failure would disappear. Once the emotion of fear is in control, i  am in a state of reasoning the root cause of the failures. Then it would enable me to display more positive, balanced, mature behavior externally to the team.

The point behind the narration is that every one of us needs to analyze ourselves at a deeper level on every positive and negative behavior for the transformation.

It takes time and needs the patience to improve self. The more you do self-analysis, the more you become emotionally stronger in both personal and professional life.

Let us discuss more beliefs and values next week!
 

Self Awareness - SWOT Analysis

Self Awareness - SWOT Analysis
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)



 

Having discussed the importance of self-awareness last week, let us discuss some of the methodologies through which you can be aware of yourself better.

1. Self Introspection through SWOT analysis
2. Values and Beliefs clarity
3. Identifying purpose and passion 

 
First, let us discuss one of the powerful methods of knowing self is through SWOT analysis. As most of us aware that this SWOT tool is being used for business purposes, and it can be being used for personal development as well.

SWOT  stands for is Strength, Weakness, or area for improvement, Opportunities, and Threats. 

a brief idea about each element

 Strength :

Everyone has unique strengths. Identifying and leveraging is one of the aspects of self-awareness. Self can define strength by listing out all positive attributes or by taking reference from other's feedback or opinion as expressed frequently.

For example, you may be realizing that you are good at "thinking creatively," that is your strength. Or others also might have mentioned this quality many times. 
 
Weakness or Area for Improvement:
 
Weakness or Area for Improvement is quite the opposite of strength. Some of the areas which you may think to improve further or others might have mentioned frequently.
 
For example, you may be thinking that you are not good at listening. Some people might have pointed at your poor listening. You might come across many occasions you made the task complicated due to poor listening ability. Those are all clues that you need to improve further on listening skills.

In my opinion, there is no weakness in personal capabilities; it is only an "area for improvement." Anything can be improved over some time if we have awareness and take action.
 
Opportunity :
 
Opportunity is nothing, but when you leverage your strength, that will become an opportunity or the changes in the external world that will give you a chance to leverage.
 
For example, if you identify your creativeness as strength, what are the opportunities that exist to explore?
 
Threat:
 
The threat is quite the opposite of opportunity. When you are not addressing your area of improvement for a longer duration, that will become a threat to your survival or growth. Also, you can identify the change in the environment, and if you are not updated, that will become a threat.
 
The point is SWOT as a tool that helps you to streamline your thought processes to know yourself better. This analysis can be done at least once in a year that will give more clarity about yourself. I have been using this analysis myself for the last 25 years and finding useful.
 

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Action plan

Identify your strength, areas for improvement, opportunities, and threats in your personal and professional areas that will give you some level awareness about you.
 

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Initially, articulating seems to be difficult, and this analysis is an iterative process.

Indicators of Low Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Indicators of Low Emotional Intelligence (EI) 
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

How to measure our current emotional intelligence level?  Many agencies in the market are administrating psychometric assessments to measure EI level and it is up to the individual to take it if it is affordable, keen on the quantitative metrics, and the development plan.

Alternatively, let us reflect on some of the habits that we demonstrate on a day to day activities. Those habits will give some ideas about our current capability of managing emotions and the gaps to bridge.

Given below, some of the habits/behaviors in the workplace. If you relate more points with your behavior, then you need to realize that you should work on emotional management aspects.

Some of the indicators of low emotional management skill 
 

1. Accepting to other’s obligation to complete a task by saying YES, then internally feeling bad about ourselves for not saying NO and finding difficulty to complete the task as per commitment and developing internal stress.
2. Getting into arguments for silly issues with colleagues or external people even though they admit the mistake. Just to prove our stand, keep on talking.
3. Criticizing others even though we do not have a direct influence and not relevant to personal, professional, business growth. ( For example, by  criticizing the player’s performance who are actually in the field or criticizing the people who are in the hot seat and no way we connect with them and no way they can hear our voice.)
4. Frequently losing coolness and shouting in high decibels with colleagues, junior colleagues, and at the end of the drama, the purpose is never met!
5. Taking “Impulsive decisions” due to overjoy or anger or frustration which sometimes backfires by way of monetary loss, time loss and the friction in the relationship.
6. Not having the patience to listen to others, interrupting with personal views.
7. Blaming others when things go wrong and not realizing the self’s contribution to the failure
8. Frequently going in a self-sabotaging mode for all the failures without logically analyzing the causes.
9. Not able to focus and prioritize. Keep on changing the priorities or even jobs or business.
10. Not able to look at the issues from other’s perspectives and more self-centered.

You can add the list based on your experience and relate your selves.

We need not regret today’s level of managing emotions effectively as it is the effect of many variables like your values, beliefs, awareness of self and others which we discuss later with counteractions. But awareness is essential for progress.

Moving towards higher-level emotional management is possible with awareness and practice.

Let us discuss more on this aspect.

Emotional management and its effect

Emotional management and its effect (Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we discussed the importance of emotional management in the workplace, let us see a typical example of different emotional management for a particular event and how it is affecting the quality of the relationship and impacting the performance.

For example, one of your teammates prepared a presentation which you suppose to present it to your customer. The presentation content seems to be as good as you expected.
 
Now you have three choices on managing your emotions in terms of recognizing and expressing.
 
Choice 1: Recognizing your feeling of happiness and expressing to your teammate
 
Since you have a high level of emotional intelligence, at that moment, you realize the feeling of happiness. Also, you express your happiness to your teammate by appreciating the work, giving some more positive feedback about the presentation.

Consequence:

First, you are feeling happy and at a high level of a positive state. Second, your teammate feels happy, motivated with your appreciation, and learns some more tips on the presentation from you. There is a chance of development in his/her capability and an increase in the quality of the relationship.
 
Choice 2: Recognizing the feeling of happiness, but not expressing to your teammate.
 
You may feel happy and ending the discussion with the teammate with a simple gesture of thankfulness.
 
Consequence:

your teammate is not getting any clue about your feeling. He/she may get disappointed, doubtful about his / her quality of work, feeling not learning much from work. The quality of the relationship is neutral and not much scope for development.
 
Choice 3: Not recognizing your feeling of happiness and not expressing to your teammate
 
As you are with low EQ, you are not in a position to recognize your feeling at that moment and concern about other’s work.

Consequence:

Nothing fulfills you, and your teammate feels low for a thankless job and not getting any clue about the work, and there may be chances of poor relationship building and learning.
 
We are not concluding which choice is right or wrong. It is up to the individual to decide. The point to realize is that, knowingly or unknowingly, we are displaying either one of the choices in our interactions, and each choice has a different consequence on either relationship building or managerial/ leading capability in the workplace. 
 
Going forward, let us discuss the process of developing awareness of emotional management.

Why is emotional management required in the workplace?

Why is emotional management required in the workplace?
(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Emotional management at work is all about managing your emotions or feelings within yourself, expressing well, understanding other's emotions, regulating your response in line with both yours and others.

When we learn to master the emotions through awareness and practices, it brings the following personal and professional benefits.
 

1. Being in a peaceful state  
2. Feeling complete
3. Being productive
4. Taking timely and right decisions
5. Enabling growth in the profession
6. Nurturing a good relationship with others 

 For example, you might have seen some people who are qualified with educations and technical/functional skills (IQ), but not being happy inside, not achieved much growth in the profession and not sought after person. But some people without much educational qualification, low intelligence on technical/functional aspects are living a fulfilled life, having a good relationship with others and consistently grown in professions. The main reason for the contradiction is emotional intelligence (EQ) or emotional management skill only.
 
Even at the business level, some business is quite successful and grown consistently because the leaders are good at managing the emotions well at self-level and managing the people's feelings very well. People could be employees, customers, and other stakeholders.

Most of the organizational problems are related to people management only. The executive leaders who are good at managing the people well can drive the business results also very well. That calls for effective emotional management skills.

What is meant by emotions?

Psychologists suggest the six dominant emotions that we are experiencing most of the time, namely happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust. Under each, there may be many sub-elements.

When we manage those emotions very well in terms of recognizing and expressing, we become a better person in dealing with emotions.

For example,

one of your teammates prepared a presentation which you suppose to present it to your customer. You are happy with the presentation quality. The way you are recognizing your emotions at the moment and expressing with others will have a consequence on your quality of self and relationship. Let us discuss the various scenario next week that will give you the idea of our emotional management.

Learning Emotional Intelligence

Some time back, i requested feedback on the topic to be discussed for our personal and professional growth. Some have expressed  the requirements indirectly the struggles they have at a personal level and the workplace as follows

• dealing with the decision dilemma
• managing the boss and the colleagues
• how do we know we are on the right path?
• developing charisma
• improving interpersonal skill
• managing the conflict and difficult people
• overcoming stress

When we observe all the struggles, most of them are related to emotional management only.

Emotional management can be defined as the ability to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others to make effective decisions.

When we are aware of ourselves in terms of our values, beliefs, strengths, areas of improvement, and if we learn to know how to deal with the emotions of others, we can become a better person. That awareness brings the ability to manage all the challenges in the workplace.
 
 For the last 30 years, the modern business world packaged emotions related aspects into a new theory, termed as Emotional Intelligence or Emotional Quotient and a lot of researches and books have been written on that subject. When we go in-depth of those theories and researches, one after study either supports or counters previous findings, and some of them are not considering cultural differences.

One thing I had realized that reasonable emotional management is already in our culture as we encourage more family systems and our ancient mythologies also insist upon emotional management. The Bhagavat Gita starts with the emotional conflict of Arjuna, and Krishna taught more to bring emotional stability as part of his teachings.
 
Hence, we need a holistic approach to look at our personal and organizational challenges in dealing with emotions from our culture, a combination of emotions, and a spiritual perspective. Also, to bring a transformation at an individual level on emotion management, just theory alone is not sufficient, we need to experiment, and self-realization is required.
 
With that context only, we are going to discuss "Emotional Management for Personal and Professional Growth" in the coming weeks with an in-depth explanation of some of the concepts, real-life examples, small actions, and sharing the personal experiences. We focus more on our discussions with reference to workplace challenges only.
 
Given below the broad area of coverage.
 

• Knowing self – Strengths / Values / Beliefs / purpose /balancing in all aspects of life
• Controlling and Managing our emotions for positive turnout
• Achievement drive – self-motivation/ finding passion/ taking responsibility / being in energetic mode / Looking at the work and people from a karma perspective
• Managing Others – background/understanding and  sensitizing emotions  /developing others
• Leveraging relationship to achieve results – Leading change / Influencing / Building Team/ Improving communication

 
Look forward to your views and sharing your experiences.