emotional intelligence

You receive an e-mail which can consist of a policy you’re totally against, a criticism from a friend or some feedback that just gets your blood boiling.  Immediately you want to type out a reply to prove to the other person that they are wrong.  Dan Goleman (more here) would describe the above with the phrase emotional hijacking, where your emotions over power your cognitive thought.

President Lincoln understood the importance of overcoming the emotions that go along with criticism.  When Lincoln perceived criticism he would wait twenty four hours before he returned the response.  In waiting this time Lincoln was better able to reflect upon the criticism without his emotions getting in the way.  He often realized that his critics had some valid points which helped Lincoln improve as a President.  This advice is probably more important today than ever before with the 24 hours scrutiny of social media

John Harbaugh (Raven’s Head Football Coach) and Steve Bisciotti (Raven’s owner) have a similar arrangement.  They have both agreed that talking about the game right after it is completed is not going to do either one of them any good.  There is still too much raw emotion for constructive feedback to take place.  So they do not discuss the game until 24 hours have passed.  This gives both of them time to recognize and understand each other’s emotions.

Nobody likes criticism, what we have to realize is that it is more important to get things right then to be right.  So recently while listening to a podcast I heard a psychologist discuss how she handled criticism of her work.  She decide not to dig her heels in and defend her work.  Instead she joined forces with the person who criticized her so that she could better understand the perspective he and others had on her work.  This type of mindset allows you to be open to learning and taking different viewpoints.  It allows you to improve upon your work instead of defending it.

So being a New Yorker, I have the tendency to push back harder when I am pushed.  What I have observed in my own behavior is that within a couple of hours I regret my actions.  Now what I am trying to do is make generous assumptions.   So instead of thinking the person is attacking me I try to think that they are trying to help me.  The whole change in mindset often allows me to respond differently to the criticism and use it more as a learning tool.   Instead of emotional back and forth, I am getting a more constructive conversation in which I am learning and growing.

Now have I perfected this?  No.  Sometimes I still have to go home, take a deep breath and admit that my emotions were hijacked.  How would of the conversation been different if I had made a generous assumptions?  Why did I take it personally?  What are the different perspectives that I was not taking into account? 

So the next time you receive criticism, take a deep breath, remember the examples above, and try to give yourself time to gather perspective.  LISTEN LIKE YOU ARE WRONG.

As always your feedback is welcome