LEADERSHIP BLOG

Jeff Saari 6/27/17 Jeff Saari 6/27/17

The Economy of Emotions

I have been hearing lately in many places this notion of the economy of motion, that is making each movement as efficient as possible. So if you are weight lifting for instance, or running, you don't want to waste energy in inefficient body movements. Not only do you not get the benefit of the gains you want,...

I have been hearing lately in many places this notion of the economy of motion, that is making each movement as efficient as possible. So if you are weight lifting for instance, or running, you don't want to waste energy in inefficient body movements. Not only do you not get the benefit of the gains you want, you can get injured as well. So I was thinking about how this may apply to the emotional world.

In a recent blog I mentioned how an adverse feeling like embarrassment can lead us to take actions like acquiescence, avoidance, going small. However, when I ask people, these are not usually the actions they really want to take, so to me this is an inefficient way to deal with the strong negative emotions. One woman in a recent workshop blurted out that is just seems so natural to purvey these ineffective actions.

Why would we do the opposite of what we want? Very curious indeed. Answer? Because we usually don't know any better or don't know a better way. But there is always a better way in anything. My Kung Fu instructor just told me that after 40+ years of practicing he just learned something new from his master. Very cool.

So the better and more efficient way is this: When you feel gripped by a strong emotion, stop. Take a deep breath or two, take a walk, sleep on it, talk to a friend about it, go work out, eat some protein, take a break. Sometimes taking what a client called a 'calculated pause' you can get a new perspective on something that is triggering you in the moment. Let us not react to situations, but calm down and enlist our rational minds on the challenges we face. Then we can choose what we want to do instead of react with an action that doesn't support what we want. Of course strong emotions are there for a good reason, but you won't know what the reason is until you inspect it.

Why does embarrassment come up for instance? Let's say you are doing a presentation and you start fumbling your words. You then get in your head and worry what others are thinking of you and you think you should be able to do better. These are thoughts in your head that let embarrassment creep in. Of course this happens at the speed of light and just seems to happen. The our body catches up with the feeling and we get red and sweaty in the palms and then look to get out of the situation as fast as possible. BUT, reality is that you were fumbling the words a little bit, that's it. We then ascribe all of these worries, fears, and obligations on it to be something different. By reacting to the embarrassment we don't usually get what we want. SO...we need to calm down in the face of embarrassment and re-calibrate. Take some deep breaths and focus on what you want to pull off. If you can't pull it off maybe you need more practice and next time will go more smoothly.

The economy of emotion is to calm down under duress and focus on the outcome you want. If you fall prey to the emotions and purvey a negative action, learn about it so you have less chance to do it next time. One of my students from the college told me after 3 months in my class that she doesn't get embarrassed anymore, and she had a heavy case of it. She is in the driver's seat, not the other way around. This is the most efficient and stable place to be.

Jeff Saari 12/8/16 Jeff Saari 12/8/16

The Value of Conflict

Most times when we hear the word conflict we associate negative words to it: war, battle, fight, strife, antagonism, quarrel, struggle, clash, opposition, squabble, tension, dissension, divergence, friction, and disharmony to name a few. I do an activity sometimes with groups and leaders where I put the word...

Most times when we hear the word conflict we associate negative words to it: war, battle, fight, strife, antagonism, quarrel, struggle, clash, opposition, squabble, tension, dissension, divergence, friction, and disharmony to name a few. I do an activity sometimes with groups and leaders where I put the word conflict on the white board and have people say whatever word or words that come to mind. I would say 90% of them have a negative connotation. This isn't surprising. Most of us don't grow up knowing how to handle conflict and not take it personally. So we become conflict avoidant or a conflict perpetrator.

Conflict left unchecked can lead to stress, and we all know where stress leads us. Our physical, mental and emotional health suffer. Our relationships and passion for work suffer. And there is so much suffering out there. Tiredness, grumpiness, sickness, disease, unease, apathy, etc. take hold of us and this is not ideal to say the least.

There are so many sources of conflict in our lives: someone not doing what we want them to do, resource restrictions, personality differences, differing beliefs and values, generational differences, differing processing styles, being hard on ourselves, not being able to change a behavior we struggle with, etc. And unfortunately the ways we try to mitigate the conflict in our lives can be negative themselves. We feel justified in perpetrating a negative behavior to others because they did something not to our liking for instance. Sarcasm, yelling, stonewalling, avoiding, cold shoulder, are various ways from passive to passive aggressive to aggressive that seek to handle our conflict. But...it doesn't work. And worst of all we create more conflict, the very thing we actually don't want!

So what to do? Here are a few action steps you can take: 1. Identify the stressors/conflict in your life as objectively as possible. What is happening? Is someone consistently late to a meeting? Don't put judgment on it, write it down as if you were observing something scientifically. 2. Look for you part to play in the conflict. How do you react to the situations that cause you conflict? It often takes two to tango. 3. Look at what you actually want. If you could change things up to have less conflict what would be ideal for you? To have the person call you if they will be late? To manage their time better? 4. Calm down and put your desires into respectful words, what I call feedback. In short, try to change things up by being calm and clear while addressing it to the person. There is a possibility that you need to be able to let go of some control and realize that sometimes people are different than you and that is acceptable. Some people process information slower, are more deliberative. And some people want quick action for instance. Both can co-exist. 5. Look at what you appreciate about the person or persons you are in conflict with. 100% of the time I have managed conflict in the workplace we were able to find genuine gratitude in each other.

Conflict is has value and is truly a message in the bottle. Yes, some conflicts may not resolve; some conflicts between countries are thousands of years in the making. But yours don't have to be. Show up and do something different. Let your guard down. Speak up for what you want. Don't let your triggers keep the embers of conflict burning.