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Emotional Intelligence:
Better Decision Making
Presented by: Mick Lavin
MBA, Dip. Executive Coaching
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Emotional Intelligence
Know thyself
Socrates (ca. 400 BC)
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What is Emotional Intelligence?
• Simply: the awareness and understanding of
emotions
• How does this help us?
– Being aware of our emotional state gives us
options to consider our responses
– Understanding emotions in others helps us know
what may be happening in the other person
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What are Emotions?
• Typically they are a response to events of
concern, triggering physiological and
psychological changes in the person that
motivate behaviour.
• How are you feeling?
– Happy, Sad, Angry, Frustrated, Satisfied, Shocked,
Thoughtful, Surprised, Fearful, …
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The Thinking Mind
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Triggers:
Thoughts / Feelings / Behaviours
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Emotion Trumps Judgement
• Rotman school of management research
suggests that people that are Emotionally
Intelligent are protected from biases based on
their ability to recognise where their emotions
originate – a frustrating drive to work for
example.
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Why is it important that we
understand Emotional Intelligence?
• A 2008 study published in the Journal of
Consumer Research showed that emotional
intelligence could play a role in decision-
making by helping people realize their
emotions can sway the choices they make.
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What does it all mean?
• Our emotional state plays a huge part in our
ability to make decisions
• We suffer from bias
• We have trouble making sound decisions
when stress hormones are released into our
system
• And we are never really sure the decisions we
make are good decisions?
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Understanding!
• Let’s find out a little more about how
Emotional Intelligence can help us out!
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Who defined Emotional Intelligence?
• Three main schools of thought:
– Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso: MSCEIT – ability based
model (Personality)
– Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis: (ESCI) – ability
and trait model (Personality & Cognitive)
– Reuven Bar-On: EQ-I – ability based model
(Personality)
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Goleman’s Definition
• Daniel Goleman defines EI as 12 (or 19)
competencies in four distinct areas of ability:
Self-awareness
• Emotional self-awareness
Social awareness
• Empathy
• Organizational awareness
Self-management
• Emotional self-control
• Achievement orientation
• Positive outlook
• Adaptability
Relationship management
• Influence
• Coach and mentor
• Conflict management
• Inspirational leadership
• Teamwork
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Recognising your Mood State:
Self-awareness
• What frame of mind are you in?
– Happy?
– Sad?
– Confident?
– Confused?
– Frustrated?
– Angry?
• What bias will you bring to the negotiation?
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Managing your Mood State:
Self-management
• Am I happy, sad, anxious, angry, engaged,
disengaged, etc.?
• Self-management competencies
• Emotional self-control
• Achievement orientation
• Positive outlook
• Adaptability
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How can Emotion Intelligence
effectively assist in Decision Making?
• By helping us to better understand our
triggers and manage automatic reactions
• By enabling us to STOP and choose a
‘response’
• By helping us better assess our mood state
and recognise this in others
• By enabling us to respond to new
opportunities
• By helping us stay optimistic
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Nutrition, Mood, and Emotions
• Blood sugar levels impact your ability to
manage your mood
• Eating the right foods, in the right way, at the
right time can help us in better managing our
Emotional Intelligence
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Tips! Making Better Decisions
• Sleep
• Caffeine
• Meditate
• Reflect / Journal
• Understanding physiological/bodily signs
• Understanding Emotional states within yourself
• Understanding Emotional states within others
• Understanding your values
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Better Decisions
• We make better decisions when we act on information
from our feelings, our instincts, and our intuition, as
well as on information coming from our rational
intellect. It is our emotional brains, after all, that allows
us to access memory and assign weight or preference
to the choices we face at work and in our personal
lives. It is our Emotional Intelligence that guides us in
controlling or accessing emotions when we must adapt
to change, get along with others, or deal with stress.
Performance and leadership in any organizational
setting are both influenced by EQ
• Source: The Science Behind Emotional Intelligence, Emily A. Sterrett, Ph.D. 2014, HRD Press, Inc.
Intro
This talk will present Emotional Intelligence as it relates to Decision Making in a business context. Emotional Intelligence or the understanding of ones emotions is useful in all aspects of life and relationships, but our focus here will be on the working environment.
Emotional Intelligence is often referred to as EI or EQ
It has been said that EQ is more important than IQ, however, it should be stated that in a professional environment, IQ is normally reasonably well matched within work teams and departments. Where EQ gives an advantage is in how one with the required IQ level can understand and manage the emotional environment in which he/she works.
We will look at how Emotional Intelligence can help us make better decisions even under pressured circumstances.
As far back as Socrates, and probably before, we have sought to understand our minds, motivations, and behaviours. The journey begins with knowing ones self before knowing others.
Being aware of your own emotional state and managing your own emotions allows you to control how you react or (better) respond to stimuli. These stimuli may be in any context; business, personal, social, or anywhere else you find yourself.
How we feel in the moment will affect the decisions we make. If we are happy we may give concessions during negotiations, sadness may mean we lose interest and somehow sabotage negotiations, anger may lead to stubborn behaviour where we won’t concede ground. Fear may mean we put off decisions. Shock may make us stop taking risks, even measured risks.
How can we know and perhaps counteract these emotions when we make decisions?
By understanding a little more about Emotional Intelligence.
The human brain is complex. Like most animals on the planet we share certain characteristics in the structure of the brain. All mammals have a brain stem and limbic system. However, our prefrontal cortex has evolved to allow us to exert a certain amount of control over our reactions and impulses, and even the actions of our sympathetic nervous system.
Triggers enter through the brain stem and are interpreted by the Limbic system consisting of the Amygdala and Hippocampus where the trigger is compared against known memories. If the Fight, Flight, or Freeze panic button is activated then the hypothalamus is called upon to flood the body with stress hormones such as Cortisol and Adrenaline causing our physiology, emotions, and mood to change.
By the time the Prefrontal Cortex, the thinking mind, gets involved, things may already be in a dire situation!
Regaining control of your Emotions/Mood can take up to 20 minutes after a triggering event.
Much like the Cognitive Behavioural Model, the basis for understanding EI is to become more self-aware. To do this we need to understand how Triggers can launch us into emotional states that will not serve us in negotiations or decisions.
Understanding our emotions, the triggers that launch our emotions, and changing our behaviour to these triggers can effectively help us overcome our default emotional states.
What this research seems to suggest, is that while we sometimes make decisions based on emotional biases, we can exert a measure of control over this by recognising our mood state. Knowing that the drive to work has agitated us and understanding that stress hormones may be working their way through our system, means we can try to regain control over our decision making.
How Emotional Intelligence can Improve Decision-Making: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/22/emotional-intelligence-decision-making_n_4310192.html
Study on Decision making: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080530132111.htm
Not a great situation to be in if we can’t trust our own judgement
The emotional triggers we experience, the emotions that arise, and the mood that follows can serve us poorly when it comes to decision making. The hormones coursing through our system cause havoc with our cognitive abilities and interfere with our decision making abilities.
Let’s try to find out a little more about how we might counter some of these effects and avoid making poor decisions.
The main proponents of the concept of Emotional Intelligence. Much of this was based on earlier work by Edward Thorndike in the 1920’s (Interpersonal Intelligence), Howard Gardner in the 1980’s (Multiple Intelligences).
From what I have read in their research it appears there has been some discord between the researchers. In a paper by Mayer he refers to Goleman’s popularization of EI as creating a new management fad and comments that the “faddish appeal of emotional intelligence has encouraged many people engaged in otherwise legitimate business consultation to include a wide variety of approaches and concepts under the umbrella emotional intelligence.” (The effective leader: understanding and applying emotional intelligence, Mayer 2002)
I have used Goleman’s and Boyatzis’ definition in most of my work as I find their research more accessible. You may not have heard of Richard Boyatzis but he is a distinguished professor at Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead School of Management) and partnered with Daniel Goleman on much research related to EI.
Self-awareness: Recognizing and understanding our own emotions
Self-management: Effectively managing our own emotions
Social awareness: Recognizing and understanding the emotions of others
Relationship management: Applying our emotional understanding in our dealings with others
For this talk we will deal with the Self-awareness and Self-management abilities
Can you accurately self-assess your emotional state?
Suppose you have a meeting at 9am. Traffic is hell and you are running late. You may not make it for 9 but you have a few minutes before you need to make a call to postpone the meeting.
What is going through your mind right now as you sit in traffic?
If you make it to the office at 9, will you even be able to grab a cup of coffee?
What is that idiot doing at the traffic lights!!??
Will you get the chance to visit the restroom before you need to sit for an hour in the meeting?
What if you need to postpone – no, you’ll make it on time!
By the time you do get to the office, with 4 minutes to spare, how do you feel?
Understanding oneself and how ones physiology reacts to stimuli allows us to become aware of our behaviour.
Our view of ourselves rarely matches how others view us.
We are biased towards ourselves and our in-groups, or other relatedness groups.
Choosing to stop instead of reacting to stimuli, then choosing our ‘response’ to that stimulus helps to control the situation around us and avoid escalations.
It can also be said that emotions can be guided to our advantage. If I know the negotiations will be difficult, I may purposefully use anger to stop giving concessions where I might if I were happy.
If I am not invested in this particular outcome, I may become disengaged and allow negotiations to proceed for whatever purpose it serves.
Understanding my own emotions means I have some control of my responses in a negotiation or making a decision.
At the decision point, we may create space to ensure this is the correct decision if we take a moment, and ask ourselves:
Do I know my emotional state?
Was I somehow triggered into this state?
Do I know how other people are feeling right now – cues that something is not quite right.
Is this the right decision?
7 – 9 hours sleep a night is essential for peak cognitive performance and enables us to ‘catch’ our amygdala hijacks in time.
Caffeine, late in the day, can impair our ability to sleep properly. It also stimulates the brain so it should be used appropriately.
Meditation has been found to improve focus and improve our ability to better manage emotions and stay positive and optimistic.
Reflection / Journaling can help us to make sense of events after they happen, to explore our triggers and reactions.
Recognising how our bodies react to triggers helps us ‘feel’ the warning signs that we have been hijacked.
Knowing how we feel helps us steer our reactions/responses.
Knowing how others may feel helps us steer our interactions with them.
Knowing what our values are, allows us to steer by our value system and avoid cognitive dissonance in our thinking that may trigger unwanted emotional states.
And finally, a quote from Emily A. Sterrett, Ph.D. which I find apt to finish on.
