Managing Teams Part 2: Identifying Emotions
To effectively work with people, you have to be able to see, understand, and work with challenging emotional dynamics. Let’s start with some tips for accomplishing the very first step: seeing the emotional dynamics. It’s harder than you think.
”Can’t hit what you can’t see”
The first data we must observe in interpersonal interactions is the emotional experience we are having in the moment. Are we angry, sad, annoyed, sympathetic, avoidant, compassionate, overwhelmed, etc.? As rudimentary as this first step seems, it actually takes a lot of practice, because most of us are used to acting before we have conscious awareness of what we are feeling, especially when emotional discomfort triggers some fear and defensiveness. Consider this example:
An employee enters her manager’s office to raise a concern about another team member. The manager is bogged down with work, and listens to the employee while scrolling through 20 unread emails. He nods along with the employee, not making eye contact, and flatly says, “thanks for letting me know, I’ll get on it.” The employee leaves, feeling unheard, and the situation continues to take a toll on the team.
How would this look different if the manager had seen his own emotional reaction to the situation? What if he noticed what was arising in himself before he responded? It may look like this:
An employee enters her manager’s office to raise a concern about another team member. The manager is bogged down with work, and listens to the employee while scrolling through 20 unread emails. He consciously acknowledges that he feels overwhelmed, tired, and annoyed that another problem is being brought to his plate. He realizes he needs to cool off before he can handle this issue. He takes a deep breath, closes his laptop, and says “Sorry I was having trouble listening Jane, I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed right now, but I want to address what you’re bringing up. Can we meet at 2 today? I want to clear a couple things off my plate so that I can attend to your concerns with my full attention.” The employee leaves feeling heard, and they have a productive meeting about what to do.
Because this manager noticed how his own feelings were contributing to the dynamic, he was able to take an action step that avoided damaging the situation or the employee’s feelings. He was able to tend to his overwhelm and his employee’s concern without damaging himself or her. If we don’t notice what we are feeling in the interpersonal dynamic, then the door is open for our unconscious, reactionary, defensive behaviors. If we consciously notice what we’re feeling when challenge arises, then we can make conscious choices about how to work with our own emotions.
“People will never forget how you made them feel”
The second step in seeing emotional dynamics is consciously recognizing what the other party is feeling. Doing so ensures that our response is attuned to what’s important to the other party. Without this attunement, a team member may feel unheard, uncared for, or unvalued. Consider this commonplace situation:
A manager approaches Layne to ask if he’d like to take on a new project. Layne scrunches his eyebrows, takes a deep breath, pauses for a moment, and says, “I mean, I guess I could.” The manager says, “Great! Have this on my desk by Tuesday,” and walks away. Layne works through the weekend to complete the project, and his resentment of his team and job grows.
In this scenario, there were clear nonverbal indicators that the employee felt stressed and probably did not want to take on the new project. It’s likely that he only agreed to because he felt that he was supposed to, which may have not been true. If his manager had picked up on this, the interaction could have looked like this:
A manager approaches Layne to ask if he’d like to take on a new project. Layne scrunches his eyebrows, takes a deep breath, pauses for a moment, and says, “I mean, I guess I could.” The manager notices the apprehension and says “Are you sure? You don’t have to if you’ve busy. Anderson and Jane expressed interest in the project, but I wanted to make sure you had a say as well.” Layne says, “You know, actually, I think it would be better for them to take it on. I’m a bit slammed right now, but thanks for asking.” Layne avoids building extra resentment, and he’s able to balance his workload better.
Because the manager noticed what the employee was feeling and took it into consideration, she was able to take an action step that avoided making the employee feel overwhelmed. You may retort: Isn’t it up to the employee to communicate what he’s feeling? To that I say: Yes, in a perfect world. In the real world, we are more often than not unaware of what feelings are driving our behavior, and we can’t expect folks to always be on top of their emotions. Part of navigating emotional labor is noticing when someone is shut down or experiencing an emotion that they don’t know how to handle. In this case of this employee, it’s possible that he doesn’t even realize that he’s working himself ragged because be unconsciously believes that he has to prove his worth in order to be safe. An emotional insightful manager can pick up on these things and help him navigate his landmines.
In summary: If we consciously notice what we and others are feeling when challenge arises, then we can make conscious choices about how to work with the challenging emotions.
In the next section, we will discuss how human psychology, with its overwhelming focus on physical and relational safety, can explain some of the emotional dynamics that cause problems on teams.
