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Shabanov Sergey emotional intelligence. Book review: Sergey Shabanov, Alena Aleshina “Emotional intelligence Russian practice”

Sergey Shabanov, Alena Aleshina. Emotional intellect. Russian practice

Many people believe that emotions have no place in business. There is another point of view: it is necessary to fill the company with emotions, and only then can it become great. Who is right? Emotional competence skills help people manage themselves and the behavior of others more effectively. The authors offer their approach to emotions and emotional competence.

This is not my first time addressing the topic of emotional intelligence. See also Daniel Goleman. Emotional Leadership, Manfred Kets de Vries. The mysticism of leadership. Developing Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Emotional intelligence in business.

Sergey Shabanov, Alena Aleshina. Emotional intellect. Russian practice. - M.: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2014. - 448 p.

Are you familiar with the phrases: you are too emotional about this; emotions interfere with work; emotions prevent you from thinking and acting adequately; business is a serious matter, and there is no room for worries? People who, at the cost of colossal efforts, were able to achieve the fact that they always control themselves and do not show any emotions, consider this their advantage and a huge achievement. Meanwhile, by uttering these and similar phrases and thinking in this way, we deprive ourselves and our colleagues of one of the most unique resources in business - our own emotions, and the business itself - significant potential for development.

Chapter first. Nothing personal, just business?

The only way to create profit is to attract emotional, rather than rational, employees and clients; this is an appeal to their feelings and fantasies.

Kjell Nordström, Jonas Ridderstrale, Funky Business

Are emotions necessary in business? It is impossible to completely eliminate emotions from company life and people management. In the same way, it is impossible to exclude a “dry” calculation. As Peter Senge put it in his book The Fifth Discipline, “people who have achieved much on the path of improvement... cannot choose between intuition and rationality, or between the head and the heart.”

In Taylor's theory (in fact, the first management theory), the ideal was an enterprise that functions like a machine, where each employee is a cog in the system. Naturally, in such a system there is no place for emotions. In the twentieth century, the expression of emotions at work became practically unacceptable: the principle “emotions interfere with work” finally won.

However, let's remember the trends in the corporate world over the past few years. The pace of change in the world is constantly increasing. Instead of product competition, service competition comes first, and the concept of “relationship economy” appears. Changes organizational structure: Companies are becoming more flexible, less hierarchical, more decentralized. In this regard, the number of horizontal communications is increasing. The idea of ideal employee: instead of a “cog” in the system, it is now “an initiative person, capable of making decisions and taking responsibility for them.” Competition among companies has increased and continues to increase for best employees, the concept of “war for talent” appeared. At HR conferences they seriously discuss how to make an employee happy, because numerous studies have proven that “ happy people work better." In the HR environment in recent years, the term “engagement” has become extremely popular, that is, the rational and emotional state of an employee in which he wants to make the most of his abilities and resources to achieve the goals of the organization.

If you carefully delve into all these trends, it becomes clear that they all affect emotional sphere life, so a successful company and a successful leader simply need to learn to use emotions to achieve corporate goals and teach their employees the same.

Cognitive intelligence alone is not enough to achieve success. That is why at one time the famous scientist Howard Gardner introduced the theory of multiple intelligences, which included, in addition to logical-mathematical, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic and other types of intelligence. What is meant? If we understand intelligence as a person’s ability to process certain information, then different kinds intelligence will be associated with the processing of various information.

Emotional intellect - a person’s ability to operate with emotional information, that is, that which we receive (or transmit) with the help of emotions. Emotions carry information. The emergence and change of emotions has logical patterns. Emotions influence our thinking and are involved in the decision-making process. According to recent neurophysiological research, without emotions it is generally impossible to make any decisions. The famous neurophysiologist Antonio Damasio even wrote a book about this called “Descartes' Error.” The title of the book is associated with the famous phrase of Descartes: “I think, therefore I exist.” From point of view modern science a more correct option is: “I feel - that means I exist.” Damasio argues that the final impulse to make a choice comes from the parts of the brain that control emotions. In 2002, psychologist Daniel Kahneman received Nobel Prize in economics (!) for proving the fact that economic decision-making is influenced by non-rational factors, including emotions (see also Dan Ariely. Behavioral Economics)

The training company EQuator's model of emotional competence consists of four skills: the ability to be aware of one's emotions; the ability to recognize the emotions of others; the ability to manage your emotions; the ability to manage the emotions of others. This model is hierarchical - in other words, each subsequent skill can be developed by already having the previous one in your arsenal. For, as Publius Sirus said back in the 1st century BC, “we can only control what we are aware of. What we are not aware of controls us.”

Man with high level emotional competence is able to clearly understand what emotion he is experiencing at one moment or another, distinguish between degrees of intensity of emotions, imagine the source of the emotion, notice changes in his state, and also predict how this emotion may affect his behavior.

Myths about emotional competence. Emotional competence = emotionality. A person with a high EQ is always calm and good mood. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is more important than cognitive intelligence (IQ).

How to measure emotional competence? So far in Russia there are no generally accepted tests for measuring emotional intelligence. Adaptation at the Russian Academy of Sciences is currently undergoing MSCEIT, one of the recognized American EQ tests. We propose assessing emotional competence using skill-specific self-assessments. You will find a list of skills in a specific area of emotional competence at the beginning of each chapter.

Emotional competence, like other skills, develops and develops. More often than not, we were taught not to be aware of, but to suppress our emotions. Meanwhile, suppressing emotions has a harmful effect on health and relationships with others, so it makes sense to learn to recognize emotions and develop other ways to manage them.

Chapter two. “How do you feel?”, or Awareness and understanding of your emotions

Most often the term awareness used in psychotherapeutic texts when it means “translation into the realm of consciousness of certain facts that were previously in the unconscious.” To understand our emotions, in addition to consciousness itself, we need words, a certain terminological apparatus.

What is "emotion"? Can there be “no” emotions? We have divided emotions into “bad” and “good” and expect to cope with them in this way. We will encourage the good ones and suppress the bad ones. And, oddly enough, many people think that this is enough. We generally suggest the following definition: Emotion- this is a reaction body for any change in external environment. We introduce the term organism in order to draw your attention to certain two conditional levels of our interaction with the world. We connect with him at the level of logic (homo sapiens) and at the same time - at the level body(at a reflexive, instinctive and emotional level), without fully realizing all the processes taking place.

What kinds of emotions are there, that is, what words are they defined by? “Anxiety”, “happiness”, “sadness”... and to remember them, you need to make some effort - they are not in the “operative” memory, you need to fish them out from somewhere deep. People have difficulty remembering what words to use it called! To make it easier to recognize emotions, it is worth introducing some kind of classification of emotional states.

We propose four classes of basic emotional states: fear, anger, sadness and joy. Fear and anger are emotions primarily associated with survival. Sadness and joy are emotions associated with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of our needs.

Fear and Anger- these are the most primary emotions. If it can eat me, then the fear reaction ensures the restructuring of the body in order to escape. If it cannot eat me, some other restructuring of the body is required for an attack - a reaction of anger. So from the point of view of the body’s main need - survival - fear and anger are very positive emotions. Without them, people would not have survived at all, and the logical parts of the brain would definitely not have had enough time for development and evolution.

IN modern world we are more interested in social interaction. And it turns out that people are designed in such a way that the emotional parts of the brain perceive a threat to our ego, our social status in the same way as a threat to the integrity of our body.

Instead of positive and negative emotions, we prefer to use the term “adequate” (situation) emotion or “inadequate” (situation) emotion. In this case, both the emotion itself and the degree of its intensity are important (“worrying a little about this would be useful, but panicking would be completely unnecessary”).

Social stereotypes that interfere with the awareness of emotions. "Do not be afraid of anything". If you look at fear and courage from a logical point of view, then a brave person is one who knows how to overcome his fear, and not one who does not experience it at all. "You can't get irritated." This statement implies a prohibition on the manifestation of strong irritation and anger, or rather on actions caused by anger that can cause harm to others. The ban on actions is quite logical and necessary modern society. But we automatically transfer this prohibition to the feelings themselves. Instead of recognizing that we have emotions of the “anger” class and managing them constructively, we prefer to think that we do not have these emotions. And then an adult girl suffers when she needs to be firm in relationships with subordinates or a negotiating partner, when she needs to insist on her own, defend her interests and the interests of her loved ones, achieve her goals - after all, this requires the energy of anger and irritation.

Sadness and joy- these are emotions that are no longer observed in all organisms, but only in those that have social needs. If we recall Maslow’s famous pyramid, we can say that the emotions of fear and anger are more associated with the two lower levels of needs (physiological and the need for safety), and sadness and joy are more associated with those needs that arise during social interaction with other people (needs for safety). belonging and acceptance).

In modern culture, sadness is generally not welcomed. And people strive to avoid sadness, sadness, disappointment, and live so carefully... There is a lot of good and valuable in a positive approach, but in its “correct” understanding it does not imply a ban on sadness. What about joy? Popular wisdom, surprisingly, does not recommend rejoicing for us either: “laughter for no reason is a sign of a fool.” Many cultures honor suffering, tragedy, or sacrificing oneself in the name of someone (or better yet, something).

By the way, what do you think is the most expressed emotion at work? And the least manifested? The most expressed emotion at work is anger, and the least expressed is joy. Most likely, this is due to the fact that anger is associated with power, control and confidence, and joy is associated with frivolity and carelessness (“we are here to do something, not to giggle”).

Emotions and the brain. Neurophysiological basis of emotional intelligence. Neocortex- that is, the “new cortex”, the last part of the brain to appear evolutionarily, the most developed only in humans. The neocortex is responsible for higher nervous functions, in particular thinking and speech. Limbic system responsible for metabolism, heart rate and blood pressure, hormones, sense of smell, feelings of hunger, thirst and sexual desire, and is also strongly associated with memory. The limbic system, giving an emotional coloring to the experience we receive, promotes learning: those behaviors that bring “pleasure” will be strengthened, and those that entail “punishment” will gradually be rejected. If, when we say “brain,” we usually mean “neocortex,” then when we say “heart,” we, oddly enough, also mean the brain, namely the limbic system. The oldest part of the brain is reptilian brain controls breathing, blood circulation, movement of muscles and muscles of the body, ensures coordination of hand movements when walking and gestures during speech communication. This brain functions during coma.

The memory of the reptilian brain functions separately from the memory of the limbic system and neocortex, that is, separately from consciousness. Thus, it is in the reptilian brain that our “unconscious” resides. The reptilian brain is responsible for our survival and our deepest instincts: obtaining food, seeking shelter, defending our territory (and mothers protecting their young). When we sense danger, this brain triggers the fight-or-flight response. When the reptilian brain becomes dominant, a person loses the ability to think at the neocortical level and begins to act automatically, without conscious control. When does this happen? First of all, in case of direct danger to life. Since the reptilian complex is more ancient, much faster and has time to process much more information than the neocortex, it was the wise nature that entrusted it with making decisions in case of danger.

It is the reptilian complex that helps us “survive by miracle” in critical situations. As long as the intensity of emotional signals is not very high, the parts of the brain interact normally and the brain as a whole functions effectively. But when a certain level of intensity of emotional signals is exceeded, the level of our logical thinking sharply decreases.

The global drama of emotional intelligence. For emotions of strong intensity (which we know a lot about, and for which we have many words to denote), we do not have a directly aware tool - the brain (or rather, it works very poorly). And for low-intensity emotions, when this tool works great, there are no words - another tool of awareness. There is a very narrow area somewhere in the middle where we can be aware of emotions, but here we lack the skill, the habit of systematically paying attention to our emotional state. It is precisely because we do not know how to recognize emotions that we do not know how to manage them.

It is precisely those passions, the nature of which we misunderstand, that dominate us most powerfully. And the weakest of all are feelings whose origin is clear to us.

Oscar Wilde

Emotions and body. Awareness of emotions through bodily sensations and self-observation. What does it mean to pay attention to your emotional state? Emotions live in our body. Thanks to the limbic system, the emergence and change of emotional states almost immediately causes any changes in the state of the body, in bodily sensations. Therefore, the process of awareness of emotions is, in essence, the process of comparing bodily sensations with some word from our dictionary or a set of such words. There is a theory that people are divided into kinesthetic, visual and auditory learners according to their way of interacting with the world around them. Sensations are closer and clearer to kinesthetic learners, visual images to visual learners, and sounds to auditory learners.

Try to imagine yourself as an outside observer, then perhaps you will notice that you are slightly pressing your head into your shoulders (fear), or constantly pointing your finger at, or speaking in a higher voice, or your intonation is a little ironic. To realize an emotion, we need consciousness, a terminological apparatus and the skill of paying attention to ourselves, and for this we need training.

Awareness and understanding of emotions. When we talk about understanding, we mean several factors. Firstly, it is an understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships between specific situations and emotions, that is, the answer to the questions “What is the cause of different emotional states?” and “What consequences might these conditions have?” Secondly, this is an understanding of the meaning of emotions - what does this or that emotion signal to us, why do we need it?

Emotional “cocktails”. The model we have proposed also helps well in developing the skill of awareness because with its help you can “break down” any complex emotional terms into a certain spectrum of four basic emotions and something else.

How we “protect ourselves” from fears. Everything that is unknown and new to us must first be scanned at the organism level for danger. At the level of logic, we can be ready for change and even quite sincerely “wait for change.” But our body resists them with all its might.

Social fears. Threats of loss social status, respect and acceptance by other people are just as significant for us, because it means being left alone. There are many more unconscious fears in our lives than we used to think.

Is it possible to be angry with yourself? Let's introduce a metaphor - the direction of an emotion, or rather not even an emotion, but the possible actions that may follow this emotion. Fear will cause us to run away from an object or freeze. That is, fear is directed, as it were, “from.” Sadness is more inward-directed; it focuses us inward. But anger always has a specific external object, it is directed “towards”. Why? Because this is the very essence of emotion - anger induces a fight in the first place. But no normal “organism” will fight with itself, this is contrary to nature. But we were taught as children that it is not good to be irritated, so the idea arises: “I am angry with myself.”

Emotions and motivation. So, emotion is, first of all, a reaction; we receive a signal from the outside world and react to it. We react by directly experiencing this state and taking action. One of the most important purposes of emotion is to motivate us to some activity. Emotions and motivation are generally words with the same root. They come from the same Latin word movere (to move). The emotions of fear and anger are often also called the “fight or flight” response. Fear motivates organisms to engage in activities related to defense, while anger motivates organisms to engage in attack. If we talk about a person and his social interaction, then we can say that fear motivates us to preserve, save something, and anger motivates us to achieve.

Making decisions. Emotions and intuition. Before making a decision, people usually consider various options, think about them, discard the most inappropriate ones, and then choose from the remaining options (usually two). They decide which one is preferable - A or B. Finally, at some point they say “A” or “B”. And what this final choice will be is determined by emotions.

Interaction of emotions and logic. Not only our emotions influence our logic, our rational thinking, for its part, also influences our emotions. Thus, the expanded definition will be as follows: emotion is the reaction of the body (emotional parts of the brain) to changes in the environment external to these parts. This could be a change in the situation in the outside world or a change in our thoughts or in our body.

Chapter three. Awareness and understanding of the emotions of others

People's feelings are much more interesting than their thoughts.

Oscar Wilde

Essentially, the process of becoming aware of the emotions of others means that at the right moment you should pay attention to what emotions your interaction partner is experiencing and name them. In addition, the skill of understanding the emotions of others includes the ability to predict how your words or actions may affect the emotional state of another. It is important to remember that people communicate on two levels: at the level of logic and at the level of the “organism”. It can be difficult to understand the emotional state of another, because we are accustomed to paying attention to the logical level of interaction: numbers, facts, data, words. The paradox of human communication: at the level of logic, we are poorly able to realize and understand what another person is feeling, and we think that we ourselves can hide and hide our condition from others. However, in fact, our “organisms” communicate well with each other and understand each other very well, no matter what we fantasize about our self-control and ability to control ourselves!

So, our emotions are transmitted and read by another “organism”, regardless of whether we are aware of them or not. Why is this happening? To understand, you need to know that the human body has closed and open systems. The state of one person's closed system does not in any way affect the state of the same system of another person. Closed systems include, for example, the digestive or circulatory system. The emotional system is open: this means that the emotional background of one person directly affects the emotions of another. It is impossible to make an open system closed. In other words, no matter how much we sometimes want it, we cannot prevent our “organisms” from communicating

About the influence of logic and words on the emotional state of the interlocutor. Usually we tend to judge the intentions of another by the actions that he performs, focusing on his emotional state. One of the most important parts of being aware of others' emotions is understanding what emotional effect our actions will have. It is important to take responsibility for your actions and remember that people react to your behavior, not to your good intentions. Moreover, they are not at all obliged to guess your intentions and take them into account if your behavior causes them unpleasant emotions.

It is worth remembering two simple rules. (1) If you are the initiator of communication and want to realize some of your goals, remember that for another person it is not your intentions that matter, but your actions! (2) If you want to understand another person, it is important to be aware not only of his actions, but, if possible, the intentions that dictated them. Most likely, his intention was positive and good, he simply could not find the appropriate actions for it.

To understand the emotions of others, we must take into account that the emotional state of another affects our own emotional state. This means that we can understand another through awareness of changes in our emotional state - it’s as if we ourselves can feel the same thing that he feels - this is called empathy.

The emotional state of another is manifested at the “organism” level, that is, through nonverbal signals - we can consciously observe the nonverbal level of communication. We are well aware and understand the verbal level of interaction - that is, in order to understand how the interlocutor feels, we can ask him about it. So, we have three main methods of understanding the emotions of others: empathy, observation of non-verbal signals, verbal communication: questions and assumptions about the feelings of another.

Empathy. Recent discoveries in the field of neurophysiology confirm that the ability to unconsciously “reflect” the emotions and behavior of another is innate. Moreover, this understanding (“mirroring”) occurs automatically, without conscious reflection or analysis. If all people have mirror neurons, then why are some people so good at understanding the emotions of others, while others find it so difficult to do so? The difference lies in being aware of your emotions. People who are good at detecting changes in their emotional state are able to intuitively understand other people's emotions very well. People who have little empathy have a harder time connecting with other people and understanding their feelings and desires. Many of them easily find themselves in situations involving interpersonal misunderstandings and misunderstandings.

Why do we feel what others feel? On the importance of mirror neurons. For a long time, the nature of this phenomenon remained unknown. Only in the mid-1990s, the Italian neurologist Giacomo Rizzolatti, having discovered the so-called mirror neurons, was able to explain the mechanism of the “reflection” process. Mirror neurons help us understand another person not through rational analysis, but through our own sensations, which arise as a result of internal modeling of the actions of another person. We cannot refuse to “mirror” another person. Moreover, our internal copy of another person’s actions is complex, that is, it includes not only the actions themselves, but also the sensations associated with them, as well as the emotional state that accompanies this action. This is what the mechanism of empathy and “feeling” another person is based on.

Popular wisdom says: if you want to learn something, watch people who do it well.

"Fool me". Understanding nonverbal behavior.

The joy of seeing and understanding is the most beautiful gift of nature.

Albert Einstein

Let's figure out what nonverbal behavior is. Very often this is understood as “sign language”. At one time, many books with a similar title were published, the most popular of which was probably “Body Language” by Allan Pease. Actually, what do we call verbal communication? These are the words and texts that we communicate to each other. Everything else is nonverbal communication. Besides gestures great importance have our facial expressions, postures and the position that we occupy in space (distance) relative to other people and objects. Even the way we dress carries non-verbal information (came in an expensive suit and tie or ripped jeans). And there is another component of nonverbal communication. We pronounce the texts that we communicate with a certain intonation, speed, volume, sometimes we clearly articulate all the sounds, sometimes, on the contrary, we stumble and make reservations. This type of nonverbal communication has a separate name - paralinguistic.

There is the so-called Mehrabian effect, which is as follows: when meeting someone for the first time, a person trusts only 7% what the other person says (verbal communication), 38% trusts the way he pronounces it (paralinguistic communication), and 55% trusts the way he says it (paralinguistic communication). what it looks like and where it is located (non-verbal). Why do you think this happens? Emotions live in the body, and, accordingly, they manifest themselves in the body, no matter how you hide them. Therefore, if a person is insincere, then no matter what he says, his emotions will give him away.

There are two opposing points of view. The first says that people are initially evil, selfish and ready to defend their interests, not disdaining anything, including deception. The second says that people initially intend to do good. Each of us has met people who would confirm the validity of both points of view. However, whatever point of view you believe in, you will attract people to you, and also find yourself (unconsciously) in situations that confirm it. Therefore, let’s better not talk about conscious deception, but use the emotionally neutral term “incongruence.” This term is used when talking about the discrepancy between verbal and nonverbal cues each other.

What do you need to do to learn to understand nonverbal behavior? You should not indulge yourself in the illusion that after this you will begin to “read” other people, as the headlines of fashion publications may promise. It is worth being aware of nonverbal communication as a whole and paying attention to its various aspects. The most important thing for interaction and understanding of another person is a change in non-verbal position. If you notice his condition, you can contact him with a question, then you will be able to get more information from him.

Just like being aware of your own emotions, training is important. Turn on TV and turn off the sound. Find some feature film and watch it for a while, observing the gestures, facial expressions and location of the characters in space. Public transport. How do these people feel? If you see a couple, what kind of relationship are they in? If someone tells someone something, is it a funny story or a sad one? Conference. Are these two really happy to see each other or are they just pretending to be happy, but in reality are they competitors who don’t like each other? Office.“What is this person feeling now?”, “What emotions is he experiencing?” Having assumed some answer, we can then analyze what we observe in this person's nonverbal behavior and ask ourselves whether my assumption about this person's emotions correlates with my ideas about gestures, postures and facial expressions.

Observing paralinguistic communication. If a person suddenly begins to stutter, stammer, mumble or talk, then this is most likely an indicator of some degree of fear. Aggressive emotions may be characterized by increased speech volume. In anguish and sadness, people tend to speak more quietly, drawn out and more mournfully, often accompanying their speech with sighs and long pauses. Joy is usually divided into higher tones and a faster tempo (remember how the crow from Krylov’s fable - “the breath stole from its crop from joy”), so the tone becomes higher, and the speech becomes more confused. However, this applies mainly to pronounced emotions. Therefore, to improve the skills of understanding paralinguistic communication, we can again advise you to more often include an observer of this process.

“Do you want to talk about it?” How to ask about feelings? A direct question may cause some anxiety or irritation, or both. It turns out that everything is not so simple with the technology of awareness and understanding of the emotions of others through direct “asking”. The main difficulties of the verbal method of understanding the emotions of others: people do not know how to realize their emotions, and it is difficult for them to correctly answer the question about feelings and emotions. Such a question itself, due to its unfamiliarity, evokes emotions of anxiety and irritation, which reduces the truth of the answer.

Open questions, by their very name, “open up” space for a detailed answer, for example: “What do you think about this?” Closed questions “close” this space, suggesting a clear answer “yes” or “no”. In communication theory, it is recommended to refrain from using too many closed questions and use more open ones.

Since asking about emotions is not very common in our society, it is important to formulate these questions very gently and as if apologetically. So, from the phrase: “Are you mad now, or what?” - we get: “Can I suggest that you may be somewhat irritated by this situation?”

Use the following speech formula, it has been verified by the authors and is the most correct. Any technique = essence (core of technique) + “depreciation”. Moreover, the essence is the logical level of application of technology, and depreciation is the emotional level.

Empathic statement. In communication theory, there is such a concept - an empathic statement, that is, a statement about the feelings (emotions) of the interlocutor. The structure of an empathic utterance allows the speaker to express how he understands the feelings experienced by another person, without assessing the emotional state being experienced (encouragement, condemnation, demand, advice, reducing the significance of the problem, etc.). Sometimes it’s enough to say to an irritated person: “It must be annoying when there are always delays in a project?” - how he becomes noticeably calmer. Why does this work? Most people are unaware of their emotions, just like this man. But the moment he hears a phrase about emotions, he involuntarily pays attention to his emotional state. As soon as he realizes his irritation, his connection with logic is restored and the level of irritation automatically drops.

Do emotions help a person? Maybe it’s only because of them that a person makes stupid mistakes, which he later regrets. But at the same time, only the ability to feel makes it possible to empathize with others, understand them and look for ways to solve problems that will suit both sides. Emotional intelligence is now talked about quite often, but not so much that this topic is well covered and understandable to everyone. In addition, most often you can read about this in books by foreign authors who do not take into account the peculiarities of the Russian mentality. In the book “Emotional Intelligence. Russian practice" by Sergei Shabanov and Alena Aleshina, these features are taken into account.

With this book you can learn about the role our emotions have on our lives, our actions and even our way of thinking. What are our true goals when we behave in one way or another? When do emotions help and when do they complicate the situation? This book will be useful to all leaders, managers, and anyone. It tells you how to behave with subordinates and colleagues, with clients, partners, and how to negotiate while achieving your goals. It tells you how to recognize your emotions and learn to manage them, as well as how to learn to understand the emotions of other people and also manage them, without using manipulation.

The book is well structured, easy to read, the authors provide examples, and provide answers to questions that students of their trainings usually have. The advantage of the book is its practicality. Questions are given here, there is a place to write the answers, and the reader will be able to independently analyze his emotions and understand how to proceed.

On our website you can download the book “Emotional Intelligence. Russian Practice” by Sergey Shabanov, Aleshina Alena for free and without registration in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format, read the book online or buy the book in the online store.

This is not my first time addressing the topic of emotional intelligence. See also , .

Sergey Shabanov, Alena Aleshina. Emotional intellect. Russian practice. - M.: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2014. - 448 p.

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Chapter first. Nothing personal, just business?

The only way to create profit is to attract emotional, rather than rational, employees and clients; this is an appeal to their feelings and fantasies.
Kjell Nordström, Jonas Ridderstrale, Funky Business

Are emotions necessary in business? It is impossible to completely eliminate emotions from company life and people management. In the same way, it is impossible to exclude a “dry” calculation. As Peter Senge put it in his book, “people who have achieved much on the path of improvement ... cannot choose between intuition and rationality or between the head and the heart.”

A person with a high level of emotional competence is able to clearly understand what emotion he is experiencing at one time or another, distinguish between degrees of intensity of emotions, imagine the source of the emotion, notice changes in his state, and also predict how this emotion may affect his behavior.

Myths about emotional competence. Emotional competence = emotionality. A person with a high EQ is always calm and in a good mood. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is more important than cognitive intelligence (IQ).

Chapter two. “How do you feel?”, or Awareness and understanding of your emotions

What is "emotion"? Can there be “no” emotions? We have divided emotions into “bad” and “good” and expect to cope with them in this way. We will encourage the good ones and suppress the bad ones. And, oddly enough, many people think that this is enough. We generally suggest the following definition: Emotion- this is a reaction body to any change in the external environment. We introduce the term organism in order to draw your attention to certain two conditional levels of our interaction with the world. We connect with him at the level of logic (homo sapiens) and at the same time - at the level body(at a reflexive, instinctive and emotional level), without fully realizing all the processes taking place.

In the modern world, we are more interested in social interaction. And it turns out that people are designed in such a way that the emotional parts of the brain perceive a threat to our ego, our social status in the same way as a threat to the integrity of our body.

Social stereotypes that interfere with the awareness of emotions."Do not be afraid of anything". If you look at fear and courage from a logical point of view, then a brave person is one who knows how to overcome his fear, and not one who does not experience it at all. "You can't get irritated." This statement implies a prohibition on the manifestation of strong irritation and anger, or rather on actions caused by anger that can cause harm to others. The ban on actions is quite logical and necessary for modern society. But we automatically transfer this prohibition to the feelings themselves. Instead of recognizing that we have emotions of the “anger” class and managing them constructively, we prefer to think that we do not have these emotions. And then an adult girl suffers when she needs to be firm in relationships with subordinates or a negotiating partner, when she needs to insist on her own, defend her interests and the interests of her loved ones, achieve her goals - after all, this requires the energy of anger and irritation.

Sadness and joy- these are emotions that are no longer observed in all organisms, but only in those that have social needs. If we recall Maslow's famous pyramid, we can say that the emotions of fear and anger are more associated with the two lower levels of needs (physiological and the need for safety), and sadness and joy are more associated with those needs that arise during social interaction with other people (needs for belonging and acceptance).

It is precisely those passions, the nature of which we misunderstand, that dominate us most powerfully. And the weakest of all are feelings whose origin is clear to us.
Oscar Wilde

Social fears. The threat of loss of social status, respect and acceptance by other people is just as significant for us, because it means being left alone. There are many more unconscious fears in our lives than we used to think.

Chapter three. Awareness and understanding of the emotions of others

People's feelings are much more interesting than their thoughts.
Oscar Wilde

Popular wisdom says: if you want to learn something, watch people who do it well.

"Fool me". Understanding nonverbal behavior.

The joy of seeing and understanding is the most beautiful gift of nature.
Albert Einstein

Let's figure out what nonverbal behavior is. Very often this is understood as “sign language”. At one time, many books with a similar title were published, the most popular of which was probably “Body Language” by Allan Pease. Actually, what do we call verbal communication? These are the words and texts that we communicate to each other. Everything else is nonverbal communication. In addition to gestures, our facial expressions, postures and the position we occupy in space (distance) relative to other people and objects are of great importance. Even the way we dress carries non-verbal information (came in an expensive suit and tie or ripped jeans). And there is another component of nonverbal communication. We pronounce the texts that we communicate with a certain intonation, speed, volume, sometimes we clearly articulate all the sounds, sometimes, on the contrary, we stumble and make reservations. This type of nonverbal communication has a separate name - paralinguistic.

Open questions, by their very name, “open up” space for a detailed answer, for example: “What do you think about this?” Closed questions “close” this space, suggesting a clear answer of “yes” or “no.” In communication theory, it is recommended to refrain from using too many closed questions and use more open ones.

What happens if we are not aware of (understand) the emotions of other people? If Gazprom representatives had thought about what emotions the construction of the Okhta Center would evoke in residents, perhaps they would have been able to reduce the emotional intensity of the discussions.

Chapter Four. “Learn to control yourself,” or Managing your emotions

General principles of managing emotions: the principle of responsibility for your emotions; the principle of accepting all your emotions; the principle of goal setting in managing emotions.

The principle of responsibility for your emotions. I alone am responsible for what I experience at any given time. How can it be that we cannot influence what another person tells us!? Indeed, we cannot always change the situation itself. However, now we are talking about our emotional state - and this is precisely what can be controlled. Recognizing that I am capable of managing my own condition means accepting responsibility for my emotions and the actions that follow from those emotions.

Accepting all your emotions. All emotions are useful in a given situation, and therefore it is illogical to permanently exclude any emotion from your behavior. Until we recognize the presence of an emotion, “do not see it,” we cannot see the situation well as a whole, that is, we do not have sufficient information. And naturally, without recognizing the presence of some emotion, we cannot part with it; it remains somewhere inside in the form of muscle tension, psychological trauma and other troubles. If we forbid ourselves to experience an emotion that we consider negative, then our emotional state worsens even more! Likewise, if we forbid ourselves to sincerely rejoice, then joy disappears.

Max Fry, a famous science fiction writer, in his “Book of Complaints” describes it this way: “This jewel in most cases is lying around in the darkest closet […] And then they wonder why in their youth happiness and flour were cut into slices, but now they are smeared with a thin layer accounts for our daily bread? Where did the sharpness of sensations go? Why doesn’t your heart break into pieces over every trifle reason? And some sigh resignedly: “I’m getting old,” others rejoice: “I’m becoming wiser, I’m gaining power over my emotions.” And the best ones understand […] that there is almost nothing to lose, and [are ready to do anything] just to find a momentarily wasted treasure.”

By losing some of our emotions, we also lose the feeling of fullness of life. There is another way. Bring emotions back into your life. Returning does not mean becoming emotionally unrestrained. This means accepting the right of emotions to exist and finding additional ways to manage them. Let's start our return with “small” joys. The view of the uninitiated. To explain the essence of this method, we need to describe the city in which we live. Marsha Reynolds calls the "layman's gaze" - the gaze of a person who sees something for the first time. As you know, “you quickly get used to good things.” And we get used to the city in which we live, to the company we work for, to the people who are next to us.

When choosing any behavior, the key is to answer the question: “What is the goal?” In addition to the goal, an action has two more important characteristics: price and value. Value is the benefits I will receive from taking actions; the price is what I have to pay to obtain these benefits. Only sophisticated manipulators can do this to get only value and not pay any price. The most effective actions when managing emotions are those that will help achieve the desired result (value) at the lowest cost (price).

Algorithm for managing emotions

Managing emotions can be divided into two subgroups: reducing the intensity of a “negative” emotion and/or switching it to another (“negative” emotion in our meaning is one that prevents you from acting effectively in the current situation). Evoking/strengthening a “positive” emotion (that is, one that will help you act as effectively as possible). This creates the quadrant for managing your emotions:

Additionally, we can consider reactive and proactive emotion management. We will need reactive emotion management when emotions have already appeared and prevent us from acting effectively. These methods are also called “online” methods, because right now, this minute, something needs to be done. Proactive emotion management refers to managing the emotional state outside of a specific situation (“offline”) and can include analyzing the situation (why am I so excited? What can I do next time?), working to create a general mood and mood background. Thus, emotion management techniques can be placed in our quadrant:

What should a manager do? It is important for him to be able to find wording to communicate to others about his emotional state. But showing emotions is weakness! Subordinates will think that since I am not able to cope with my emotions, that means I am weak! This is the most common stereotype about emotions in the work of a leader. Do you know what employees will really think? “It’s hard for him too! He is also a man! - instead of thinking: “This one at the top doesn’t give a damn, he doesn’t give a damn about what happens to us.” Communicating your emotions is not a loss of power, it is a different power.

« Metaposition“- this is like the look of an outside observer, when you look at the situation as if from the outside or as if you were watching yourself and your interlocutor, for example, from a balcony, that is, detachedly. In this way, we seem to “get out of the situation”, leaving all our emotions inside it, and have the opportunity to look at what is happening objectively.

As you know, strong emotions prevent us from thinking. What is less known is that the opposite is also true: active thought processes reduce the intensity of the emotions we experience. In a situation where we are excited or very worried about some event, it is useful to start thinking.

The ability to cope with momentary impulses is one of the components of the skill of managing your emotions. Fire prevention means: muscle relaxation. Emotions create physical tension in our body. Accordingly, by removing it and relaxing, we also relieve emotional stress.

Mental methods. Emotions are divided into primary and secondary. Primary emotions arise as a direct reaction to an event. Primary emotions are fleeting. The situation is over, the emotion has also passed. Secondary emotions arise as a result of the interaction of the neocortex and the limbic system as our reaction to the logical assessment of a given event (and not to the event itself). Thus, secondary emotions are associated with our memory and experience of social interaction, as well as the presence of various kinds of attitudes.

From this follows the most important property of secondary emotions - they may not be limited in time at all; a person can experience them over a very long period of time. But there is also a plus - we can consciously control these emotions with the help of the neocortex. All mental methods of managing emotions are aimed specifically at working with secondary emotions.

How is work organized according to the ABC scheme? The chain looks like this: “He doesn’t call” (situation A) - “That means he doesn’t like me” (thoughts B) - “I’m upset and depressed” (emotions C). And emotions arise precisely in response to thoughts! In essence, this diagram is a more structured presentation of the ancient wisdom “If you can’t change the situation, change your attitude towards it.” It is important to find opportunities for a different assessment of the situation (other thoughts), which, in turn, will lead to other emotions. The most difficult thing in the ABC scheme is to identify the thoughts that cause a particular emotion. Remains last step algorithm. It is important to install this new thought in your head.

Considering that we are all subject to delusions to one degree or another, we should choose beliefs for ourselves that bring maximum pleasure.
Max Fry,

If you look carefully at the list of your statements, then, most likely, many of them contain or imply so-called absolute words: “always”, “all”, “never”, etc. Our thoughts, which contain the idea that “this always happens,” are irrational. In other words, illogical. These are our stereotypes about ourselves, various situations and other people. Beliefs brought from childhood about what is “good” and what is “bad” prevent us from perceiving things as they really are, and not as we are used to thinking about them. Why are they irrational and illogical? Because they contain absolute words: “always”, “never”, “everyone”, “any”, “nobody”, as well as strict assessments: “correct”, “normal”, “good”, “bad” (based on what criteria is “good”?). This attitude slows us down in our development. The installations are used by manipulators. “You’re a leader, you have to.” And the person who was told this, if he has the appropriate attitude, has only one option left on what to do. Correct. Finally, behavior outside the set (both one's own and other people's) causes a very strong emotional reaction.

Therefore, if we want to react more calmly to what is happening in the world around us, it is worth reformulating our irrational beliefs in such a way as to allow for the possibility of different behavior and the free choice of this behavior. Remove absolutism and ambiguity from it. These thoughts and attitudes are most often not conscious. If you can recognize them, you can reformulate your irrational belief.

Reframing is that the situation itself remains the same, we just consider it in a different context, that is, we change the framework. Reframing is in a good way going beyond your own stereotypes and ideas about how things “should be.” Many well-known company slogans, in essence, are also reframing when we expand the scope of our work... Nokia: Connecting people, Walt Disney: Making people happy.

In order to find the framework within which the situation will begin to evoke different emotions in us, it is important not only to concentrate, but also to be able to focus internally on searching for the positive. More often we concentrate on the unpleasant, which causes corresponding emotions in us, but in the same way we can configure ourselves to see the good that is in a given situation. Another way to reframe is to, without changing the frame of the situation, change our attitude towards it by changing what we call it. Words have a huge emotional connotation. Remember: “Whatever you name the yacht, that’s how it will sail.”

Ability to translate problems into goals, problem-oriented questions. What do you want to happen instead of your problem? What all can be possible options achieve such a result? (Everything, including delusional, unrealistic and completely fantastic.) Turn on your imagination! What resources can help you solve this problem most quickly? What people can help you solve this problem? What can you do today to start moving towards achieving your desired result?

Problem-oriented questions are aimed at analyzing a problem. Analytical thoughts often make us feel slightly sad. At the same time, problem-oriented questions most often do not help us find solutions. The main focus of goal-setting questions is achieving the goal and finding ways to achieve the goal. Since, in order to move forward, we need irritation, and to find new paths, we need a certain emotion from the class of joy, a feeling of drive appears, a desire to move forward. One of the ways to manage emotional states is to use goal-setting thinking.

Rituals- one of the most effective ways cope with an emotion that has been haunting you for a long time.

Anger. Remember that irritation arises for the action, and if we cannot implement the action itself, we need to find a replacement for it. Majority practical recommendations on Anger Management is based on this idea.

Sadness. If fear and anger are tonic emotions, then sadness is an emotion that reduces tone and has low energy. Therefore, this emotion is more difficult to manage; sadness drags in like a swamp. It is best to get out of such a “sluggish” state by recharging with energy: for example, by engaging in physical activity or switching to another, tonic emotion: joy, fear or anger.

“Lighting the spark.” It is important for managers, like all representatives of professions related to working with people, to be able to evoke the desired emotional state in themselves. Once you tune in, you begin to act more effectively. Some psychologists call this state the “” state, and the Russian folk expression defines it as “everything in your hands is burning.” This skill can be developed into the skill of entering a resource state - the ability to quickly enter the state in which everything works out in the best possible way.

Positive approach- is not at all the same as blind optimism and rose-colored glasses. Its essence is in the name: “positive” comes from the word “positum”, that is, “what is available.” What we call the positive approach is called “rational optimism” in some American literature: relying on what good things already exist, rather than on what good things might happen in the future. We hold it in high esteem to be tormented by feelings of guilt, to thoughtfully study our mistakes, to strive for perfection and to make pessimistic forecasts of the development of events. This is considered smart. Be positive, pay attention to your own strengths and making optimistic predictions is considered a simple and frivolous way.

Constructive Feedback to myself. Analyzing all the actions that we have performed, we sort them into two groups: “Effective, next time I will do the same” and “Next time I will do it differently” (instead of the standard “right/wrong” analysis). Optimism researcher Martin Seligman identified three pillars of pessimism: generalization (“I never succeed at all”); immutability (“I have never succeeded and will never succeed”); self-blame (“and only I am to blame for all this”). Constructive feedback to yourself helps you “bypass” these three pillars and give a clear and objective assessment of the situation. The main criterion for quality feedback is its non-judgmental nature. Imagine that something that we tell ourselves in a moment of extreme despondency, someone else will tell us. At the very least, we will be very offended. Why then do we allow ourselves to treat ourselves this way and speak about ourselves this way?

We do not encourage you to constantly be in a positive mood. As we remember, fear, anger and sadness are also useful emotions, and by allowing only positive emotions into our lives, we lose a large amount of information and may miss something important. At the same time, when we have a positive attitude, it is much more difficult to upset us or make us angry. Thus, a positive approach creates for us solid support under our feet and a kind of protection from the excessive influence of unpleasant events and emotions on us.

Restoring leadership potential. The extremely stressful nature of the work of managers leads to a special form of stress - managerial stress. Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, in their book Resonant Leadership, say that psychological fatigue causes both a leader's self-esteem and emotional state to become unstable. They recommend countering this with the help of active consciousness, optimism and empathy.

Chapter five. Managing the emotions of others

When we talk about managing others, what comes to the fore is principle of goal setting.

Algorithm for managing the emotions of others:

Recognize and understand your emotions
Recognize and understand your partner's emotions.
Determine a goal that takes into account both my interests and the interests of my partner.
Think about what emotional state of both of us will help us interact more effectively.
Take action to put yourself in the right emotional state.
Take action to help your partner get into the right emotional state.

The principle of civilized influence (emotion management and manipulation). Since emotions are the motivators of our behavior, in order to cause a certain behavior, it is necessary to change the emotional state of another. Barbaric practices include those that are considered “dishonest” or “ugly” by society. In this book, we consider those methods of managing the emotions of others that belong to the “honest” or civilized types of influence. That is, they take into account not only my goals, but also the goals of my communication partner. What is manipulation? This is a type of hidden psychological influence when the goal of the manipulator is unknown. Manipulation in most cases is an ineffective type of behavior because: a) it does not guarantee results; b) leaves behind an unpleasant “aftertaste” for the object of manipulation and leads to a deterioration in relationships.

Manipulation or game? Not in all cases an open and calm behavior that includes an honest statement of one's goals will be most effective. Or at least be pleasant for both sides of the communication. Managing people also involves a huge amount of manipulation. This is largely due to the fact that the leader for his subordinates is associated with dad or mom, and a lot of child-parent aspects of interaction, including manipulation, are included. Since, when controlling the emotions of others, we do not always state our goal (“Now I will calm you down”), in a sense, of course, we can say that this is manipulation.

The principle of accepting other people's emotions. To make it easier for you to accept the emotional state of another person, it makes sense to remember two simple ideas: if another person behaves “inappropriately” (yelling, screaming, crying), this means that he is now very bad. And since it’s difficult and hard for him, it’s worth sympathizing with him. Intention and action are two different things. Just because a person hurts you with their behavior doesn't mean they really want it.

When we allow ourselves to engage in behavior, it usually does not irritate us in other people either. Common mistake when managing the emotions of others - underestimating the significance of the emotion, trying to convince that the problem is not worth such emotions. What reaction does this assessment of the situation by another person cause? Irritation and resentment, the feeling that “they don’t understand me.” What he needs most now is to be accepted with all his emotions. Another idea is to immediately solve his problem, then he will stop experiencing the emotion that bothers me so much.

Quadrant of Managing the Emotions of Others

If, when managing their emotions, people are often interested in reducing negative emotions, then when it comes to managing the emotions of others, the need to evoke and strengthen the desired emotional state comes to the fore - after all, it is through this that leadership is carried out

"We're putting out the fire"- quick methods to reduce other people's emotional stress. To do this, you can use any verbal methods of understanding the emotions of others. Questions like “How are you feeling now?” or empathic statements (“You seem a little angry right now”). Our empathy and acknowledgment of another's emotions by saying, "Oooh, that must have been really hurtful" or "You're still mad at him, right?" is much better than giving "smart" responses. adviсe.

Using express methods for managing emotions. This can only work if you are not the cause of your partner’s emotional state! It is clear that if he is angry with you, and you offer him to breathe, he is unlikely to follow your recommendation.

Techniques for managing other people's situational emotions. Anger management. Aggression is a very energy-intensive emotion; it is not for nothing that after its outburst people often feel empty. Without receiving external reinforcement, aggression fades very quickly. Below are phrases that incite and reduce aggression:

“Do you want to talk about this?”, or the “Shut up - Be silent - Nod” technique. Use techniques for verbalizing feelings. You can carefully communicate your emotional state to the other person using an “I message”, for example: “You know, when you talk to me in a rather loud voice and with a not very happy expression on your face, I get a little scared. Please, could you speak a little more quietly?..” Keep non-verbal communication under control: talk while maintaining a calm intonation and gestures. Never say no to a terrorist!

Since none of us is perfect, then from a logical point of view, we can respond to almost any criticism with some kind of partial agreement: You are unprofessional. Yes, my professionalism can be improved. You have little experience in this area. Yes, there are people who work in this field more than me. We suggest learning to start any answer with the word “yes”. Then, even in a situation of conflict, you will be able to maintain a more friendly background of interaction. You can find something to agree with even in the most ridiculous claims and insults. In these cases, we agree not with the statement itself, but with the fact that such an opinion exists in the world. This is a kind of indirect consent. All women are fools. Yes, there are people who think so. And the last aspect of technology. In some sales books you can find the “Yes, but...” technique. Use another conjunction, for example, a connecting conjunction - “and”.

The first reaction of a person when they “run into him” or make claims is fear. One of the consequences of this fear is the desire to immediately justify oneself. Although we often think that an excuse or a promise will improve the situation, in fact it only increases aggression. Calmly agree that an unpleasant situation occurred, without going into explanation of the reasons and without making promises. Acknowledge the significance of the problem. Whatever you may think about a situation, if a person experiences strong emotions, then it is really important. Say that the situation is very important, very unpleasant, and, of course, if you were this person, you would also experience a whole range of different emotions.

If you have a call center, and if a person is unhappy with something, he will not stand it all: “Press 1 if. Now press 2 if...” If you value your clients and your wallet, give the client the opportunity to talk to the operator without any problems.

Do you think you have sympathized enough? Sympathize some more!

What makes sense to do to manage other people’s fears: reduce the significance of anxiety, question the adequacy of fear, recognize the significance of anxiety, offer a distraction from the problem, ask about fears, let the person think through and analyze their fears.

What makes sense to do to manage other people’s sadness and resentment: reduce the significance of the problem, recognize the significance of the emotion, report your difficulties, pay full attention to the other, ask him open questions about the situation and his emotions, to let him talk out, to console, using the words “no matter”, to continue to maintain eye contact.

Conflict Management. Resolving conflict constructively is extremely difficult for many reasons. Firstly, people do not know how to recognize and manage their emotions, so this stage turns out to be extremely difficult psychologically. Secondly, people do not know how to negotiate in such a way that the solution suits both parties. Thirdly, people do not know the basic laws of communication and do not know how to communicate effectively. Finally, in most cases, during negotiations to resolve a conflict, the parties communicate at the level of their positions, not their interests.

A mediator is often invited to resolve serious conflicts. The task of this person is to reduce the emotional stress of the parties and help them realize and present their true interests. As a rule, when this happens, the conflict is resolved quite quickly, because at the level of interests it is much easier to find both common needs and desires, and possible new solutions.

What to do if you yourself are not involved in the conflict, but it is important for you that the parties to the conflict find a way to resolve it constructively? First, help both participants think about their interests. Do not ask participants to think about the interests of others! We often do this in attempts to “reconcile” the warring parties, which only causes serious irritation.

Give others quality (constructive) feedback. Criticism destroys self-esteem, undermines self-confidence and worsens relationships. In order for a person to hear our words and be motivated to change something in his behavior, it is necessary that he be in a fairly calm and even emotional state. If it seems to you that in your company an employee is almost always at fault, there is more effective forms feedback than criticism. Criticism contains information about mistakes, about what should NOT have been done. And no information about what to do next time. This is why criticism so rarely leads to behavior change. Qualitative feedback contains only information about a person’s actions and in no case includes an assessment of the individual, even a positive one. Because the one who considers himself to have the right to evaluate another puts himself psychologically higher. If you judge another person, it causes irritation. In general, the more non-judgmental the feedback, the better.

Quality feedback is timely. Talk about what happened in Lately, and don’t remember that “three years ago you did this too.” It’s better if feedback is provided “on request,” that is, if the person himself asked you: “So, how?” Be prepared for the fact that any, even constructive, “unsolicited” feedback can be irritating. Constructive feedback is given one on one. Qualitative feedback contains information about specific actions, and the more specific the better.

Qualitative feedback provides recommendations on what to do next time (not mistakes). Qualitative feedback includes two parts: information about what is worth continuing to do (what was effective and successful in the actions of the other person) and what makes sense to change (“growth areas”). Qualitative feedback contains more information about the “pluses” than about areas of growth.

About the qualitative implementation of changes. Perhaps the most widely circulated quote from the book “Funky Business”: Soon there will be two types of companies in the world: fast and dead.

Our “body” prefers to be in the “comfort” zone. Or rather, in the zone of “known and understandable”. Any changes cause fear in our “organisms”. It is for this reason that the implementation process is so often stalled, and sometimes even stopped altogether. Positive changes may cause less concern. But it is almost impossible to realize it. If you want to implement changes in your company, it is worth finding ways to reduce employees' fear of upcoming changes.

The classic theory of change implementation is that of Kurt Lewin, who argues that any change process must go through three stages: “unfreezing”, “movement” and “freezing”. It is important to “unfreeze”, “shatter”, “stir up” the current situation.

“Lighting the spark”, or “Contagion” with emotions. Rituals self-tuning. Rituals can be used for yourself personally, or you can create general, “team” rituals. There are benefits to rituals performed together. First, you can remind each other to take the necessary actions. Secondly, you can encourage and “infect” each other with emotions, enhancing the effect. A well-performed ritual of “beginning” allows you to tune in to teamwork, remember that we work together, feel like that very “one team”.

Motivational speech.

With this faith, we can hew the stone of hope from the mountain of despair. With this faith we can transform the discordant voices of our people into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we can work together, pray together, fight together, go to prison together, defend freedom together, knowing that one day we will be free.
Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream"

There is nothing particularly difficult about preparing a motivational speech. It can be very short, just a call. It is important that it contains three components: the emotional richness of the text, the necessary emotion coming from the leader (or from the one who motivates something), and an appeal to values that are significant to your audience.

Drive duty and other methods of short-term motivation. Brainstorm- one of the methods of short-term enhancement of drive. Another similar idea for a short-term boost of drive is something called "surprise management." Employees (for example, the sales department) are given a short-term task (from one day to a week), upon completion of which the employees receive an agreed upon prize (this could be a cake, a bottle of champagne, movie tickets - that is, something not very large and significant).

“Keeping the fire burning”, or Forming a team spirit. Teams are a group of people who have a shared common goal that is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve alone or by another group of people. This is why it is so difficult to talk about real teams in business: new people come to the department, someone leaves for another project, someone quits altogether.

In his works, studying great companies, he noticed that they have what he called a BHAG (BHAG - big, hairy, ambitious goal) - literally translated, “big, hairy, ambitious goal.” Having just such a goal will allow team members to unite their efforts and will serve as a constant motivator for them.

Any group goes through similar stages in its development. It all starts with the addiction stage. What do people who have just started working together depend on? First of all, from social stereotypes and norms of politeness. Gradually, the level of trust in the group grows a little and each of its members allows himself to appear more as he is, and not as he wants to appear. At this stage, group members are ready to defend their interests (at the first stage they could have sacrificed them), different roles begin to be distributed in the group, leaders are identified, etc.

At the second stage of its development, the group enters the conflict stage. This stage cannot be avoided, it can only be passed through - like any conflict, either constructively or destructively. If the conflict stage is passed constructively, a deeper feeling arises based on sincerity, greater psychological closeness and trust among team members. It remains to develop joint norms and rules of work. Finally, the last stage of team formation is the so-called working stage. This does not mean that the team members did not work before. This means that only now the team is reaching the peak of its effectiveness. A sports team suddenly begins to win all its games one after another, and with apparent ease. The team in the game “What? Where? When?" begins to answer questions ahead of schedule and wins with a score of 6:0.

The book introduces the concept of “emotional accounting.” The idea is very simple: every time you perform an action that gives another person more pleasant emotions, increasing your level of trust and mutual understanding, you “replenish your account.” Every time you offend him in some way, do not keep your promises and behave harshly with this person, a “write-off” occurs. What does high balance mean? This means that we are not afraid to make a mistake every minute, expecting and knowing that we will be understood and accepted, even if something goes wrong. That we can speak sincerely without fear of being “misunderstood.” We can calmly express our disagreement with something, knowing that this will not worsen the relationship and that we can calmly agree on things that are important to us.

Creating an emotionally intelligent motivation system. The classic, oldest motivation system is “carrot and stick”:

But... the donkey moves remarkably well only until it reaches the fork. And here again, only the leader decides which way to turn. It’s good when the market situation is stable (the road is straight and without forks). But in conditions of intense competition, changes and rapid development or, conversely, complex changes, the whole road is full of forks. And in such a situation, we want to have proactive and enterprising employees who will find the right path themselves!

What emotions should be used to build a motivation system in a company? Fear motivates you to run away from the object! And therefore, it does not motivate people to move forward! With the help of fear, you can force a person to do something, but it is impossible to force him to do it well or use all his strength for work. Any system of fines, as you might guess, also relates to motivation based on fear. Also, what does a fine or punishment do? Motivates to avoid punishment. The task is to create a motivation system that would cause healthy irritation in employees along with a certain amount of joy.

Praise. The influence of this tool on maintaining a positive climate in the team does not need to be explained. Why do we so rarely praise our subordinates? Why do we so rarely inform them about their successes? Praise, like feedback, can be of two types: evaluative and non-evaluative. If you use praise for specific actions, then the result of such frequent praise will only be that the person will continue to do the same actions well.

Believing in potential. We want to become better when someone around us believes that we can be better. Therefore, if you want to positively influence other people, believe in their potential, in their resources and capabilities.

Implementing emotional competence in organizations. Enter - first Russian company, corporate culture which is based on the principle “happy employee = happy customer”, and one of the company’s core values is joy. The company has an Employee Happiness Department, as well as a Customer Happiness Department.

To implement emotional competence at the organizational level, it is necessary to take into account the following: employees’ knowledge of the basics and key provisions emotional competence, training employees in emotional competence skills (primarily managers, HR specialists and managers working with clients).

And finally... What is the correct way to say “thank you”? Nice thanks, which pleases both its author and its recipient, has the following characteristics: like constructive feedback, it is specific, that is, it contains information about the actions that the person performed, and not just: “Thank you for everything!”; it is personal, which means it makes sense to address a person by name; it is sincere, it is assumed that you are truly sincerely grateful to the person, and do not express it formally, “for show.”