The Power of Flexing by Susan J. Ashford

Author:Susan J. Ashford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Business
Published: 2021-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 7

Managing Your Emotions to Enhance Your Learning

“Jason Hartman” is a senior leader in a well-known consumer packaged-goods company—an executive with major responsibilities for the productivity and profitability of a corporate large division. He works long hours continually juggling multiple initiatives and dealing with business pressures that often push him and his team in opposing directions simultaneously.

Perhaps this explains why he developed the habit of drumming his pen on the table during business meetings.

Jason himself never realized he had this habit until it was pointed out to him by the executive coach his company asked him to meet with. It seems that some of the members of Hartman’s team had specifically mentioned his pen drumming as one of the warning signs they’d learned to notice. When a meeting wasn’t going the way Hartman wanted—when others at the table would disagree with him, ignore his comments, or choose a path he disapproved of—he would become increasingly frustrated and upset. The pen drumming was the first telltale sign. If the meeting continued to deteriorate, Hartman’s pen drumming might give way to sarcastic outbursts and even fists pounding on the table—at which point the meeting would effectively dissolve.

In team meetings, Jason’s tightly wound emotions were making him an ineffective leader—even, at times, a destructive one.

Jason was genuinely surprised when his coach pointed out how he was undermining the usefulness of the meetings he attended. He and his coach dedicated some sessions to unraveling the problem. Little by little, Hartman began to develop the habit of paying attention to his emotional responses and the physical expressions of those responses. When a meeting became upsetting to him, he learned to notice his own outward signs: “Oh, I’m drumming my pen. I must be feeling frustrated.” The recognition enabled him to take steps to flex his response to the frustration by choosing to behave in a way that would facilitate learning and growth for Hartman rather than blockading them.

Jason’s challenge was not unusual. Maggie Bayless also sometimes was at the mercy of her emotions. Like many thoughtful professionals, Maggie set goals for how she wanted to be at work—how she wanted to interact with others. But often these goals would go out the window when she was dealing with strong emotions: she would find herself lashing out or her irritation would leak out in ways that were noticeable to all around her. People started shying away from sharing their true opinions if they thought it might set her off, so she often did not get the information she needed to do her work. She would also feel guilty about how she was acting around her important colleagues. She knew something had to change: she had to find a way to get some control in certain situations that triggered strong emotions.

Like Maggie, we all like to believe we’re solely driven by reason and logic. But the truth is that we’re deeply emotional, sometimes irrational creatures, and at times our strong emotions can wreak havoc with our plans to learn and grow.

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