The Story: Yuki
After the organization she worked for decided to leave New York City, Yuki quickly concluded that she would stay in New York anyway. Yuki had been an anomaly in Japan—a successful businesswoman working in finance. In New York, she sought to begin a small venture fund, and she was successful in raising an initial sum of capital from a wealthy Japanese investor.
Yuki was introduced to an American company based in Seattle that was seeking funding. A meeting had been set up; Yuki was to fly to Seattle, but the intermediaries were not able to arrange the details in time for her to make the trip. Disappointed, she called the CEO of the Seattle firm and was told that he would be coming to New York the following week. A date for a meeting was set up.
Yuki was a very positive person. She struggled with negative emotion and avoided negative feelings. She noted that her reaction to bad news was to immediately attempt to calm herself. Her emotional coping skills were well developed, but she applied them the moment a negative feeling came over her. And that sometimes led to problems. We also know that Yuki scored in the below-average range on the Using Emotions part of the MSCEIT: the ability to use emotions to facilitate thinking.
The Emotionally Intelligent Manager Analysis
Being optimistic is one thing, but not allowing yourself to experience negative emotions is another. Yuki was slated to make her first major investment. If the CEO of the Seattle company was persuasive enough, Yuki was ready to hand over a substantial portion of her total investment fund to support his ideas.
We know that people in a positive mood tend to focus on possibilities and see the big picture. They are not as tuned in to details, nor do they process information by looking for problems. Knowing that Yuki warded off negativity and encouraged positive feelings, there was a real danger that she would not cast a critical enough eye over the CEO’s presentation.
Yuki clearly understood what was at stake. She knew that she focused on positive emotions, and she was open to the idea that this was not always the optimal mood to be in. In fact, she came up with several previous situations in which that positive mood had gotten her into trouble. She was aware of the issues but wasn’t at all clear what to do about them—or even whether anything could be done. It was therefore critical that Yuki be able to approach this situation in a manner that got her the information she needed to make a great investment decision. Because Yuki had already bought into the utility of the company’s product line and vision, she needed to evaluate the risks the company faced. She practiced some of the emotional intelligence mood induction techniques she had learned, attempting to create a negative mood in herself to counterbalance her typical need to stay positive.
A Plan for the the Emotionally Intelligent Manager
During the CEO’s presentation, Yuki reported that she felt herself getting caught up in his excitement. But as she did so, she was able to trigger a thought: Is this how I want to feel right now? Yuki began to calm herself but with a different goal in mind: to bring her mood down from an upbeat and optimistic one to a more neutral, even a slightly negative one.
She was more focused on the marketing plan and the intended roll-out into other geographic markets. Yuki was able to access her critical thinking skills and apply them to these aspects of the plan, with the result that she discovered a number of flaws in their reasoning. They were serious flaws but, in her estimation, correctable. With this information, she engaged the CEO in a constructive discussion and indicated what assurances she required before she was willing to make the investment.
Yuki said that the CEO appeared to be surprised by her insight and comments and perhaps a bit embarrassed that his team had not anticipated the problems.
The Outcome and Lessons Learned
Yuki was able to follow the four-step Emotional Blueprint. First, she identified her own feelings and those of the others in the meeting. She was able to generate the mood that helped her attend to and focus on details. Next, Yuki attempted to understand the underlying issues, how people felt, and why they felt that way. Last, by staying open to uncomfortable feelings, Yuki could process the information that was contained in the emotions and arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. How did she accomplish all of this? Yuki had the Emotional Blueprint process literally in front of her. She had the model in her head, and she used it to help her plan her approach. She practiced alternative scenarios, both in her imagination and in real life with colleagues and friends with whom she felt comfortable.