Tweet

Emotions Drive Behavior Emotional Intelligence Training

Written by: Bill Benjamin

Article Overview: Emotions Drive Behavior - Emotional Intelligence Training.

Emotions Drive Behavior Emotional Intelligence Training

Emotions Drive Behavior

Recently, we were designing a training program at the Institute for Health and Human Potential, and we began our meeting as we always do - by asking ourselves the question:
“What do we want people to be able to do differently after the program?”

It’s interesting that no matter what kind of program we design, and no matter the methods we use (training, assessment, coaching, e-learning, etc), the answer almost always goes like this: “We want people to better understand and manage the emotions that drive their own behavior and the behavior of others.”

This really is the basic foundation of Emotional Intelligence - the notion of emotions driving behavior. Most leaders and individuals that we work with don’t understand this (I used to be one of them) and they focus on observing and managing behaviors. For example, we worked with a leader - lets call her Jane - who was not doing well at holding her people accountable to deadlines. Her boss had spent considerable time explaining to her why it’s important to do this (which it is) and how to do it (i.e. the behavior).

But Jane was still struggling with it. She was fortunate enough to have attended an Emotional Intelligence program that included a 360 degree assessment, training and follow up coaching. During the training, Jane learned that we all have certain triggers – things that cause us to have an emotional reaction and trigger our innate “fight of flight” response. This limits our capacity to think clearly and causes us to move to default behaviors that may no be skillful or effective. Here are some default behaviors you might see (and experience yourself!)
• Someone get defensive when they feel criticized
• Avoiding difficult conversations (as Jane did)
• A person gives in to a strongly worded demand when they really don’t want to
• Someone becomes controlling and directive when they are feeling overwhelmed
• A person “shuts down” and becomes quiet when there is conflict in a meeting

These are examples of emotional reactions that can force us into unskillful default behaviors. For Jane, her default behavior was to avoid discussions about deadlines, because they trigger her emotionally. Jane’s 360 assessment actually reinforced this as she got feedback from others that they were noticing this behavior (of course nobody had the courage to give her that feedback directly, but that’s a whole other conversation!).

The foundation of Emotional Intelligence is self-awareness. During the training program, Jane came to realize that the reason she wasn’t holding people accountable (a behavior she knew she was supposed to do), was because she was afraid that the people on her team would get upset, and that they wouldn’t like her. Avoiding conflict and needing acceptance from others are fundamental emotional needs we all have.

Gaining this awareness made a huge difference for Jane as it explained to her why she had not been able to hold her people accountable effectively. Jane learned techniques she could use to soothe her emotions and stop herself from moving toward her default behavior of avoiding these discussions.

With the coaching, she was able to identify low risk situations where she could practice stepping into tough conversations, even when she felt uncomfortable. She was eventually able to learn to manage her emotions (her fear of conflict and wanting to be liked) so that she could step in and have those really tough conversations with people who were not meeting deadlines.

If you want to gain self-awareness of what emotions are driving your behaviors, you can start by asking yourself some of these questions:

- When you are feeling emotionally triggered, what specifically was the trigger (a person, a situation, etc)
- In the moment when you felt triggered, what were you thinking to yourself
- What emotions may be affecting you? e.g. not feeling valued or respected, being disappointed, feeling criticized, needing to be right, etc.

If you can figure out what emotions are driving your behaviors – as Jane did - you have made a big first step in getting to a higher level of performance

Are you managing yourself, your team and the people around you for behavior without looking for the underlying emotions? I know I was only managing behaviors ten years ago, and by doing so, I was missing the biggest piece of the people-puzzle!

Bill Benjamin
CEO
Institute for Health and Human Potential IHHP

Related Articles
  3 Ways To Improve Your Emotional Intelligence
  The Buzz About Emotional Intelligence
  Can Emotional Intelligence Be Successfully Incorporated In Daily Life?
  Boost Your Emotional Intelligence
  EI - The Most Powerful Tool in Your Kit

Article Tags: 360 degree assessment, assessment training, basic foundation, boss, conflict, difficult conversations, emotional intelligence, emotional reaction, emotions, fight of flight, flight response, health, intelligence program, managing behaviors, matter what kind, notion



Related Forum Posts
7 words or less for Structogram - Some "7 words or less" (more or less) for Structogram for your comments: Training to get your message across(6) Secrets to get your message across (6) Training so people will listen to you (7) Helping you get your message across (6) Training to learn to get your message across (8) Communications training for yourself and your team (7)
Re: SES Toronto Next Week - In that case, how about the following? Track: Get Me Up to Speed * State of Search Marketing in Canada Track: Practical & Actionable * Beyond Linkbait: Getting Authoritative Online Mentions Track: Advanced * User Search Behavior * Social Media Success * Web 2.0 & Search Engines * Giving Credit Where It’s Due: Which Campaign Sold What?
Budget. - I believe the biggest barrier is related to budget. Training tends to be a normal practice for a big company. But I have to consider it seriously as an entrepreneur.
Re: Picking an external hard drive to backup my files - So I ended up buying a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini 250GB External Hard Drive from TigerDirect.ca for $97.99. While I wasn't able to get the pre-installed software to work on my computer for whatever reason... I was still able to transfer all 14 GB of my personal files via the old fashioned "copy" and "paste" method. Hopefully this won't compromise the safety of my stored data.
Re: Why Your Business' Website Is Not Making You Money - Hi Jackie, As GT has said, word of mouth has a place on the Internet but is usually more associated in a local sense. I have seen some fantastic websites that don’t get traffic and very poor sites that get lots of traffic but no sales. The trick is to find a niche or a product where there is a demand. Design a relevant website full of interesting and updated content. Drive as much traffic by whatever means that you can. If you can bring these three elements together then you are far more likely to make a success of your Internet business. regards, Mal.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Sales Training – Top Salespeople Are Not Dunces

The True Cost of Employee Turnover

Why Use an Advertising Agency

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.