Emotions as information and….What's new?

Published: Tue, 09/14/21

Dear ,

After a short summer break, welcome to this helping of "To Be Clear..." - a refreshing gulp of regular coaching clarity in your inbox where I share a couple of brief ideas which you can apply in your work life.

This issue focusses on a key source of information at work which we often don't make the most of and an encouragement to engage with new opportunities in a constructive way.

Emotions as information

It's easy to think that our feelings shouldn't matter at work, but being professional doesn't mean acting like a robot and, if we show up at work, so do our emotions. Some of us are more openly emotional than others but we all feel things!

The main issue comes not with having emotions at work but in the way we tend to deal with them - we either indulge them - letting them explicitly drive our decisions and responses - or we ignore them - allowing them to implicitly seep into our decisions and responses.

Let's say a colleague does something which really antagonises us, we can call them out and respond aggressively or speak ill of them to others. That's indulging the emotion of anger.

Alternatively we can pretend that we're not angry. That's ignoring the feeling of anger. This may seem like the more professional response but the problem is that unexpressed emotion doesn't just disappear, instead it seeps into our interactions in other damaging ways, like passive aggressive comments or a frosty forced politeness which makes the atmosphere unprofessional and uncomfortable for everyone.

The key in our professional lives is to remember that emotions are great servants but terrible masters. Rather than thinking of them as friends to be indulged or foes to be ignored, think of them as facts to be interrogated. Our emotions give us vital information about what's important to us and what we value. Our emotions tell us things that we need to know; that's why, when going through the ONION coaching framework with my clients, I talk about the concept of informotions.

One of the key things that my clients tell me our work together gives them is increased professional self awareness. I find that, where strong feelings do come into play at work, asking clients "What does your emotional reaction to X tell you about what matters to you here?" can be incredibly constructive. In giving them some distance from the emotion, it allows them to identify the larger issues at play and, in so doing, it helps to inform a more helpful response.

If you'd like to think more about this idea of emotions as information, you might enjoy this article by Susan David, author of Emotional Agility. I also recommend Chapter 4 of David Eagleman's' "The Brain", which is full of really engaging neuroscience on emotions and decision making.

So, as you find yourself dealing with especially intense feelings at or around your work, there's no need to navel gaze or negate them, instead get a little distance and then extract the information that you need to move forward effectively by asking, "What exactly am I feeling?" [Try and be as specific as possible here] "What does that tell me about what matters to me now?" and "What should I do or rethink as a result?"

If you're supporting or leading someone currently struggling with strong feelings about work, how can you help them to extract the information they need to move forward constructively?

Next a question for all of us at what can be a transitional time of year.

What's new?

As the new school year starts (in some parts of the world anyway), many of us are presented with the option of new opportunities - perhaps new roles or new ways of working or new possibilities for structuring our work or business.

A trait which I always admire in my clients is their willingness to try new things. Generally people don't work with a business coach if they want to stay in exactly the same professional patterns or positions. Nevertheless, I'm always struck by how happy my clients are to try new mindsets, new approaches to professional challenges.

While many tell me that our work together provides a safe space to surface and test out new ideas, it's still impressive to see both my organisational and individual clients go out and actually try new things at work and come back and tell me how that's going. Even over the course of the pandemic, many of my clients have launched new projects or products, some have successfully launched new careers and businesses while others have done things which on the surface look less radical - tweaked the way they run their meetings or approached key work relationships - with brilliant results.

I've been reading Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, and she writes that "Perfectionism is fear in fancy dress. We are afraid of looking foolish so we hang back telling ourselves we are being sensible. The truth is there is nothing sensible about hanging back."

So, if you're tempted to try something new in your work or business but hanging back because the first iteration won't be perfect - the great news is that it won't but you'll only know what works and what doesn't by trying things out! This isn't about throwing caution to the wind but about not letting a fear that things won't be perfect hold you back. Sound out the idea with trusted friends, colleagues or a good business coach and then work out how you can try it in a series of bounded experiments that allow you to test whether it works.

The idea is not to make change for the sake of it but to recognise opportunities to make the most of the new and not to be held back for the wrong reasons. So, this week might be a good one to ask yourself, "What's new at work?" or "What could be?" and then, "What's holding me back from trying it?"

More on this topic in future newsletters but, in the meantime, good luck with your experiments and do let me know how they're going! It's always great to hear from you.

Wishing you a clearer week ahead.

As ever,

Ranti

About this email: You are receiving this email because you subscribed to "To Be Clear...” which regularly shares insights around gaining greater clarity at work and more. If you have had this email forwarded to you and would like to receive future issues of "To Be Clear..." directly, you can subscribe below.

Click here to subscribe