1. Achieving Emotional Balance in a Chaotic World
Chapter Nine
Achieving Emotional Balance in a Chaotic World

2. Chapter Preview: Achieving Emotional Balance in a Chaotic World
How emotions influence thinking and behavior
Factors that contribute to emotional balance
Critical role of emotions in the workplace
Factors that influence emotional development
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3. Chapter Preview: Achieving Emotional Balance in a Chaotic World
Dealing with anger
Factors that contribute to workplace violence
Common emotional styles
Strategies for achieving emotional control
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4. Emotions: An Introduction
Emotions are strong, positive or negative, temporary feelings that influence thinking and behavior
Such as jealousy, fear, love, joy, or grief
Provide us with knowledge of current emotional condition
Energize our thoughts and behaviors
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5. Emotions Are activated by a variety of events
We can choose how we behave
We have control over emotions
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6. Figure 9.1 Behavior Is Influenced by Activating Events
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7. Achieving Emotional Balance—A Daily Challenge
Achieving success in complex times
emotional balance has never been more important
we need to be able to think and feel simultaneously
Choices made by heads (reason/logic) or hearts (feelings/care)
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8. Achieving Emotional Balance—A Daily Challenge
Leaders that lack emotional balance breed
fear
confusion
anger
sadness
Now seeing enormous differences in the expression of emotions
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9. Achieving Emotional Balance—A Daily Challenge
People more likely to
drive aggressively
misbehave during flights
become abusive when unhappy with service
experience emotional pain because of disagreeable bosses
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10. Emotional Competence IQ is not the only factor that predicts success
Human characteristics that make up emotional competence
Personal competence
Social competence
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11. Personal Competence
Refers to the competencies that determine how we manage ourselves
Competencies in this category include
Recognizing one's emotions and their effects
Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses in check
Maintaining standards of honesty and integrity
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12. Social Competence
Refers to the competencies that determine how we handle relationships
Competencies in this category include
Sensing others' feelings and perspectives
Listening openly and sending convincing messages
Negotiating and resolving disagreements
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13. Emotional Competence IQ tends to be stable throughout life
Emotional competence is learnable and tends to increase throughout our life span
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14. Emotional Expression
Humans carry a large array of emotions over a lifetime
Emotional imbalance can be due to
Learned inhibition of certain emotions and overemphasis on the expression of others
Fixation on a single emotion
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15. The Emotional Factor at Work
Emotions play critical role in success of every organization
Many decision-makers fail to understand the important role of emotions at work
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16. The Emotional Factor at Work
Traditional management training
Emphasizes "doing business" and is purely rational
Values only those things that can be arranged, analyzed, and defined
Need to do business with meeting of minds and meeting of the hearts
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17. The Emotional Factor at Work
Today, firms realize the importance of establishing, building, and maintaining a relationship with employees and customers
Compassion key to long-term success
Machines will never have the ability to reach out with warmth through
eye contact
physical touch
words
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18. Total Person Insight
All of our technology is underutilized and will remain so until we put the emotion of doing business onto parity with the logical and rational aspects of performance improvement.
James C. Georges
Chief Executive Officer, The Par Group
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19. Relationship Strategy
Emotional undercurrents are present in almost every area of every organization
Most service organizations realize the need for a relationship strategy
a plan for establishing, building, and maintaining quality relationships with customers
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20. Relationship Strategy
Essential for success in today’s marketplace
Front-line employees engage in “emotional labor”
Frequent contact with the public can be very stressful
Emotional labor is often more difficult to handle than physical labor
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21. Factors That Influence Our Emotions
Achieving greater emotional control starts with
Determining source of emotional difficulties
Studying factors that influence emotional development
Temperament
Unconscious influences
Cultural conditioning
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22. Temperament
Refers to a person’s individual style and frequency of expressing needs and emotions
Both biologically and genetically based
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23. Temperament Certain characteristics
Are present at birth and remain stable over time
Develop based on events that take place during life
Personality at any age reflects an interaction between temperament and the environment
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24. Unconscious Influences
Unconscious mind is a vast storehouse of forgotten memories, desires, ideas, and frustrations
Can have a powerful influence on behavior
Unconsciousness influences conscious decision-making
Childhood experience can cause emotions out of proportion to a current situation
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25. Transactional Analysis (TA)
Unconscious childhood memories can bring out emotions
The brain acts like a two-track stereo tape recorder that records
events
feelings associated with events
Incorporated into many corporate training programs
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26. Cultural Conditioning
Culture is what we see and hear so often it becomes reality
Shapes nearly every aspect of behavior and mental processes
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27. Cultural Conditioning
Often associated with a country
Most countries multicultural
US subcultures include
African American
Hispanic American
Asian American
American Indian
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28. Cultural Conditioning
Cultural influences have a dramatic effect on American adults and children
An example
Interpersonal violence in the United States is the highest among the industrialized countries
Too much violence makes it difficult to achieve emotional balance
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29. Important Roles of Emotions
It is important to remain open to the full range of emotions that influence our thinking and behavior
Emotional undercurrents are present in every aspect of our work
Separating our mental and emotional energies at work is very difficult because they are so intertwined
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30. Coping with Your Anger and the Anger of Others
Anger is the thoughts, feelings, physical reactions, and actions that result from the unacceptable behavior of others
Anger often triggers hostility
Learning to deal with anger is key to
Healthy relationships
Physical and mental health
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31. Managing Your Anger
Anger can take control of people and cause them to make poor decisions
Learning to deal with anger and anger of others is a sophisticated and mature skill people should learn
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32. Appropriate Expressions of Anger
Reduces anxiety and help you get rid of unhealthy stress
Improves communication by letting the other person know exactly how you feel
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33. Managing Your Anger
The first step in anger management is to monitor your anger
How often do you get angry each day?
What are the causes of irritation in your life?
How upsetting is each episode of anger?
How well do you manage each episode?
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34. Managing Your Anger
Use a diary or journal to determine the impact of anger in your life
Record source of irritation and the feelings that surface
Record the behaviors you display when angry
People who monitor their behavior carefully see positive results
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35. Effective Ways to Express Your Anger
Buddha says:
You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.
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36. Effective Ways to Express Your Anger
Expressing anger can be therapeutic
Many people are unsure about the best way to self-disclose this emotion
Appropriate expression improves the chances of accurate reception and response
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37. Effective Ways to Express Your Anger
Strategies
Avoid reacting in a manner that could be seen as emotionally unstable
Do not make accusations or attempt to fix blame
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38. Effective Ways to Express Your Anger
Strategies
Express your feelings in a timely manner
Be specific as you describe the factors that triggered your anger, and be clear about the resolution you are seeking
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39. Total Person Insight
Learning to develop respectful relationships at work is perhaps the most important work-related skill we can develop.
Robert Rosell
President, Quality Media Resources, Inc.
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40. How to Handle Other People’s Anger
Dealing with other people’s anger may be the most difficult human relations challenge
Learned skills can be applied to any situation where anger is a threat to a relationship
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41. How to Handle Other People’s Anger
Recognize and accept the other person’s anger
Encourage the angry person to vent feelings
Do not respond to an angry person with anger
Give the angry person feedback
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42. Violence in the Workplace
Ranked as the number one concern by security officials
Workplace murder is second leading cause of death on the job
Fear of workplace violence reduces productivity
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43. Violence in the Workplace
Workplace violence encompasses a wide range of behaviors including
Hostile remarks
Intimidation through stalking
Physical assaults
Threatening phone calls
Homicide
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44. Violence in the Workplace
Can be triggered by
Loss of job
Conflict between employee and management
Personal tragedy
Abusive behavior by supervisors
Rigid, autocratic, impersonal work environment
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45. Violence in the Workplace
Abusive behavior by supervisors
Verbal and physical threats
Lying
Deviousness
Sexual harassment
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46. Employee Sabotage
Employee sabotage is a problem throughout corporate America
Employee misconduct combined with an edge of revenge
Many employees act out anger rather than discuss it
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47. Employee Sabotage Employee sabotage may involve:
Deliberate nonperformance
Financial fraud
Slander
Destruction of equipment
Arson
Computer crimes
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48. Employee Sabotage Sabotage is committed most often by employees who:
Have unresolved grievances
Want to advance by making others look less qualified
Want to get even for real or imagined mistreatment
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49. Preventing Workplace Violence
Use hiring procedures that screen out unsuitable persons
Develop a strategy for dealing with incidents before they actually occur
If someone must be fired or laid off, do so in a way that does not demoralize the employee
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50. Preventing Workplace Violence
Provide out-placement services for laid-off or terminated employees
Establish a systematic way to deal with disgruntled employees
Provide supervisors and managers with training that will help them prevent workplace violence and deal effectively with it
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51. Emotional Styles
Emotional style starts taking shape before you were born and evolves over a period of many years
You are likely to display one of four different emotional styles
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52. Suppressing Your Emotions
Many learn to suppress their feelings
Some develop intellectual strategies to avoid dealing directly with emotional reactions
Mental and physical health problems can develop
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53. Suppressing Your Emotions
Problems traced to suppressed emotions
Headaches
Asthma
Back pain
Cardiovascular difficulties
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54. Capitulating to Your Emotions
People see themselves as helpless victims of feelings that they cannot control
Responsibility for a problem assigned to external causes while the person suffers in silence
Often overly concerned about attitudes and opinions of others
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55. Overexpressing Your Emotions
Frequently displays lack of emotional control
Use of foul language
Flared tempers
Raised voices
Teary eyes
Quick way to damage one’s image at work
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56. Overexpressing Your Emotions
Write down rather than express emotions
Use journal or write and throw paper away
Releases toxic feelings
Prepares to deal constructively with situation
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57. Accommodating Your Emotions
Accommodation means that a person is willing to
recognize, accept, and experience emotions
attempt to react in ways appropriate to the situation
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58. Accommodating Your Emotions
Integrates one’s feelings and the thinking process
“Think before you act” point of view
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59. Gender Differences in Emotional Style
Men and women often differ in emotional style
Women see men as too rational and insensitive
Men see women as too emotional
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60. Gender Differences in Emotional Style
Differences can be attributed to
Early learning
Conditioning
Expectations of family
Important for each person respect the other person’s style
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61. Strategies for Achieving Emotional Control
We have a certain amount of each energy everyday
Mental
Emotional
Physical
We can learn to discipline the mind to banish thoughts that waste energy
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62. Identifying Your Emotional Patterns
Taking time to study emotional patterns helps predict or anticipate an emotional response
Record them in a journal
Set aside quiet time to reflect on your emotional patterns
Make a chart of your emotions throughout day
Repeat process over several days
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63. Fine-Tuning Your Emotional Style
After identifying emotional patterns you want to change, consider ways to fine-tune your emotional style
There are four things you can do beginning today!
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64. Fine-Tuning Your Emotional Style
Take responsibility for your emotions
How you view your emotional difficulties will have a major impact on how you deal with them.
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65. Fine-Tuning Your Emotional Style
Put your problems into proper perspective
When faced with unpleasant events, pause and ask “Is this problem worth getting upset about?”
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66. Fine-Tuning Your Emotional Style
Take steps to move beyond negative emotions such as envy, anger, jealousy and hatred
When anger dominates your life, therapy, counseling, or membership in a support group may provide relief.
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67. Fine-Tuning Your Emotional Style
Give your feelings some exercise
Leo Buscaglia recommends that we “Exercise feelings. Feelings have meaning only as they are expressed in action.”
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68. Total Person Insight
It’s unfortunate that we’re never really taught how to show emotion in ways that help our relationships. Instead, we’re usually told what we should not do. However, too little emotion can make our lives seem empty and boring, while too much emotion, poorly expressed, fills our interpersonal lives with conflict and grief. Within reason, some kind of balance in the expression of emotion seems to be called for.
Gerard Egan
Author, You and Me
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69. Summary Our emotions help us cope with our environment
Emotions are feelings that influence our thinking and behavior
Emotional undercurrents are present in every area of an organization
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70. Summary Our emotional development is influenced by our
Temperament
Unconscious mind
Cultural conditioning
All of these contribute to our emotional competence
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71. Summary We learn to express anger and other emotions
Appropriate expressions of anger
Contributes to improved interpersonal relations
Helps reduce anxiety
Gives an outlet for unhealthy stress
We must learn to handle other’s anger too
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72. Summary Increase in workplace violence in recent years
Steps can be taken to help curb violent employee behavior
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73. Summary
To achieve emotional balance, we start with an examination of our emotional style
Four different emotional styles
Suppressing emotions
Capitulating to emotions
Overexpressing emotions
Accommodating emotions
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74. Summary Emotional control is an important dimension of emotional style
Begin developing emotional control by identifying your current emotional patterns
The process of self-examination can help you find ways to fine-tune your emotional style
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