And now, here’s another story that exemplifies putting emotional intelligence into practice by learning to experience new moods and use them to facilitate certain cognitive tasks.
The Story: Russell
Russell was never known as an upbeat kind of guy. He wasn’t sad, but he was somber and reserved. For most of his career, Russell’s performance was good-to-excellent, and most of the people he worked for felt that he handled things well.
Russell was in the compliance business. His job was to make sure that the deals the traders and bankers put together were legal. He had to understand fully the intricacies of the securities and banking laws and regulations, explain them to his clients, and then approve the deal. He had a knack for spotting inconsistencies and errors. Russell could wade through pages and pages of figures, tables, and hype, and find the places where the smartest MBA in the company had messed up.
He was doing such a good job that he was given a major promotion. In his new role, Russell was being asked to make recommendations to the investment banking community on how to better approach regulatory issues. The role was an exciting one on paper, as it provided for a friendly interchange between the folks in compliance and the investment banking sides of the house.
But Russell floundered in his new role. He couldn’t seem to switch gears and wrap his mind around the job. Russell continued to focus on what was wrong with the system and how the bankers failed to understand compliance. Russell had neither a plan nor a vision for the future.
The Emotionally Intelligent Manager Analysis
Russell scored above average on the identifying emotions component of the MSCEIT, and he was able to identify accurately how people felt. He also had insight into others and was skilled at figuring out why people felt the way they did—understanding emotions. Russell’s challenges and issues seemed to be due to his lower levels of skill in using emotions to facilitate thought and in managing emotions.
Russell dealt with negative and neutral emotions well. A low-key-guy, his typical mood was also low-key (neutral), and he could easily get into a slightly negative mood. He did this without thinking about it. For him, it became part of his work routine. In his new role, focusing on what was wrong and on details didn’t cut it anymore. The negative mood, which was adaptive in his previous job, was proving to be maladaptive now.
A Plan for the Emotionally Intelligent Manager
The plan for developing Russell’s emotional intelligence was quite easy: what he needed to do was to recognize the emotion-thinking link and match his mood to the task at hand. Learning that there’s a connection between thinking and feeling was not easy for Russell. As an extremely analytical person who valued rational thinking and judgment, Russell rejected any notion of emotions as having a place at work, especially in his work. Yet this very obstacle—his analytical ability—would soon come to his assistance.
Russell wanted data. He wanted numbers. He wanted to be convinced that emotional intelligence was real and that it amounted to something more than being a “nice guy.” He readily took to the notion that emotional intelligence was a set of skills, though, and he enjoyed learning about emotions’ role in thought. He was hooked. Now came the harder part—teaching Russell how to generate emotions and reason with them.
He monitored his daily moods, noting how they would change and how they would change his outlook. Russell created an emotion diary in which he attempted to link events and thoughts to a change in mood. This provided the critical information.
With these data, Russell was well armed with information on how to construct personal mood generation strategies. For example, Russell was an avid fly fisherman, and thoughts of boyhood trips with his dad to lakes up in Northern Ontario elevated his mood. In short, he became mildly happy and content, as well as much less negative and critical. He was able to generate several other scenarios that induced different positive moods, and he learned to access these memories at appropriate times.
The Outcome and Lessons Learned
After months of hard work, Russell became fairly adept at mood generation. A few more months after that, Russell appeared to be able to think more creatively and to feel what others felt; his client relations improved overall.
By then, Russell, who had been a low-key guy with a low-key typical-mood, was still a low-key guy with a low-key mood. This was the mood state he preferred and with which he was most comfortable. He had not changed his personality, and his disposition was what it always had been. But Russell had added an important new skill to his tool kit.