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Recently, during a design session at the Institute for Health and Human Potential, we began our meeting as we always do--by asking ourselves the question:
“What do we want people to be able to do differently after the program?”
That is, what do we really want people to walk away with that will truly help them in their personal and professional lives?
It’s interesting that no matter what kind of program we design, and no matter the methods we use (training, coaching, e-learning, etc), the answer usually goes like this: “We want people to better understand and manage the emotions that drive their own behavior and the behavior of others.”
This really is the basic foundation of Emotional Intelligence - the notion of emotions driving behavior. Eight years ago when I heard the idea for the first time, it resonated with me, but now I know how little I really understood about emotion and behavior. For those who are new to Emotional Intelligence, I can’t overstate how important (and for me, life changing) an idea this is.
Here’s a story of a situation I was involved in many years ago that may help to illustrate the importance of the connection between emotions and behavior. It’s not a story of great leadership, or one had a profound impact on a business or someone’s life. But it does show how an individual’s underlying emotion can result in specific, often destructive, behavior in their everyday lives . . . and the impact it has on the people around them.
An office administrator from my former company – let’s call her Michelle – was an easygoing employee who got along well with others. During her four years in the job, she occasionally ‘broke the rules’ and as a favor, let people use the company postage machine for personal reasons. Michelle didn’t let anyone take advantage of this – it was an occasional convenience for those who had forgotten to send a last minute bill or needed to get their Mom’s birthday card into the mail quickly that day.
After time had passed, Michelle left for a maternity leave. Her replacement – let’s call her Karen – would not allow employees to use the postage machine for personal use at all. People’s reaction? Well, you would think that their salaries had been cut in half! For at least two weeks there was incessant “water-cooler” talk about Karen and her refusal to go out on a limb for others the way Michelle had.
At this point, her manager showed up at my office complaining about the incredible waste of time this had become. He thought Karen should either let people have access to the machine or the employees should stop complaining and just live with this ‘new reality.’
I decided to try applying my training in Emotional Intelligence, and asked him what he thought was behind Karen’s actions. “She thinks it’s waste of company money,” he said. I probed further to determine if he thought this was the ‘real’ issue and he seemed convinced. I was not quite so convinced.  The next week, I had a visit from the HR Director who came to tell me that Karen’s relationship with others in the office was worsening, and that she was starting to have performance issues. My suggestion? I encouraged her to sit down with Karen to uncover the ‘real’ reason behind her actions. Since emotions drive behavior, I reminded her, she needed to understand Karen’s underlying emotions before she could address the behavioral issue and its implications for others in the company.
The conversation between Karen and the HR Director revealed that Karen felt disrespected by her manager, and because she had been given a series of ‘menial’ tasks, she felt her talents were not appreciated. The HR Director coached her to share these feelings with her manager.
The manager responded to Karen’s words with surprise, creating a coaching opportunity for the HR Director and me. We coached him to more effectively communicate his respect and appreciation for Karen and to try to find her work that she saw as rewarding and challenging.
In a month’s time, not only was Karen feeling better about her relationship with her manager, she was also happily allowing people to put their letters through the postage machine. Once the emotions driving her behavior were listened to, labeled and addressed, her behavior changed accordingly. The postage meter was merely a symptom; it never was the problem!
Why does it matter if we can coach employees to put people’s letters in a stamp machine? Think of the impact of something as small as this: what was the cost of all the water cooler talk, Karen’s poor performance and the time spent by the HR Director, Karen’s manager, and me discussing all this over a two week period? Now multiply that by every employee you have . . . times every interaction . . . and you can start to see the cost of not recognizing that emotions drive behavior.
Are you managing your staff for behavior without looking for the underlying emotions at work in their lives? If so, you are missing the biggest piece of the people-puzzle!
Bill Benjamin
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