Amy Jacobson

Emotional Intelligence: A Simple and Actionable Guide to Increasing Performance, Engagement and Ownership

Amy Jacobson is an emotional intelligence and human behaviour specialist based in Perth, offering emotional intelligence training and workshops across Australia and the international markets. She is the founder of Finding Your 'y'​.

Her book Emotional Intelligence: A Simple and Actionable Guide to Increasing Performance, Engagement and Ownership explores how we can draw on our EQ to tackle issues such as lack of accountability or loss of purpose, and serves as a guide for transforming organisational culture and improving our ability to engage with and understand other people.

The core of the book focuses on what the author calls The EI Rewiring Process - a five-part methodology for disrupting our mindset which is split into the following steps:

Own It

- Focuses on becoming self-aware and owning who we are.

Face It

- Focuses on controlling our emotions and working with them.

Feel It

- Focuses on understanding others and the impact we have on them.

Ask It

- Focuses on communicating with influence and purpose.

Drive It

- Focuses on being motivated and reaching our full potential.

This book is full of relatable concepts and practical tips. A ‘must read’ for anyone interested in EQ!

Here are four ideas we wanted to share:

Emotions are contagious

Bolster the positive ones.

Whilst it’s true an emotional experience is often unique to us - it’s important to recognise that the emotions we exhibit are easily pIcked up by other people and vice versa. This phenomena is known as emotional contagion.

Although this can have drawbacks - it’s affirming to know that there are a number of ways it can work to our advantage and studies have shown that speaking to a happy person can increase our own happiness by 20%.

In a team environment where one person is displaying a negative mindset and another person is displaying a positive mindset, the important thing to acknowledge is that the more powerful or higher intensity emotion will have have the biggest influence.

As leaders, we are often drawn towards the negative person and will attempt to defuse their emotions and change them into being more positive. Although we can address issues around underperformance or inappropriate behaviour - our control in these situations is limited to helping them become more self-aware of the impact they having. Ultimately, the person has to want to change - we can’t make them!

In these situations, we should instead be focussing on the positive person and support their ability to lift the positive emotions of the other people in the team. It serves as an organic way of boosting team morale.

“How do WE fix this?”

Creating equal stature in our relationships.

When confronted with someone who is experiencing an intense emotion such as anger or sadness, our natural response is often to try and defuse things and offer a ‘quick-fix’ solution. But this can be received by the other person as a way of downplaying the situation and not allowing them to be heard. Instead it’s important to listen first - without interruption - and then explore solutions together.

By saying “How do we fix this?” we are showing them we are in this together and will support them in uncovering the best strategy moving forward without removing their ownership of the situation. The reality is that the majority of people know how they want their problem to be fixed - so we need to try and avoid saying “I’m going to do this” as it can suggest that we know best and that our solution will be better than theirs. The use of “I’m” instead of “we” can also result in us placing an unhealthy burden on ourselves.

Avoiding, ‘Busy’ and ‘Try’.

Words with problematic emotional undertones.

The words we use reveal a lot about our emotional state. They offer a peak into our subconscious mind and give us an idea about how we’re feeling about something. At the same time, our words can also be triggers for other people’s emotions. This means when we misuse or overuse certain ones, their emotional undertone can have an impact on the people around us and derail productive communication. Here are two examples:

‘Busy’:

This is a word we all say a lot. In fact, we’ll often hear ourselves saying it as a one-word reply to a greeting - as if to suggest that if we’re not busy then we can’t be succeeding! Even though we probably say it more out of habit than anything, it’s important to consider how saying ‘busy’ as a response can make the other person feel. The likelihood is they’ll get the impression whatever they have to say better be important otherwise they’ll risk wasting our time.

In these situations, try and catch yourself before you say it and instead respond by telling them what’s been happening with you and how you are feeling about it.

‘Try’:

Often when we say this word, we are sending out the message that we think it’s unlikely we’ll succeed at something. It may seem like a well-intended response, but it’s worth considering how this can damage trust or confidence in our relationships if we lead with the word ‘try’ too frequently.

For instance, imagine if we ask someone to complete an important task and they respond with, “I’ll try”. How confident would you feel in their ability to deliver?

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t manage people’s expectations around what we think is achievable. Instead it’s about understanding that certain language choices can influence how people view us and potentially judge us.

Defining the emotional ‘win’

Getting clarity on the feeling we’re aiming for.

Everything we do is based on an emotional outcome. Our motivation for achieving a goal will often be fuelled - subconsciously - by the emotional ‘win’ we expect to experience from achieving it.

Inevitably there are times when we are working under immense pressure and feeling close to burnout. In these situations, having clarity on our emotional wins and being conscious of them can be of extra-importance. By getting into the habit of reviewing the actions we are taking - and checking whether the impact of each action leads to the outcome we want to have - we are increasing our self-awareness and deciding if, when and how it might be appropriate to adjust our approach in order to get the emotional ‘win’ that matters most to us.

Your thoughts:

Have you read Emotional Intelligence: A Simple and Actionable Guide to Increasing Performance, Engagement and Ownership already?

Do you think these ideas are useful?

Please feel free to leave a comment below.