The moment of emotional intelligence
Jack joined the meeting not feeling great.
There were twelve animating faces of other top-level managers from five different countries in a Zoom window. The host—also Jack’s boss—had been messing with the scheduling of this call for weeks but kept a “mysterious agenda” and told everyone they had “nothing to prepare.”
Jack hated that. In his book, all meetings must have a clear direction, a task to solve, and good preparation. But he couldn’t skip this one. All the participants held important roles in the company.
And when his boss opened the meeting by saying happily, excitedly: “Well, let’s have a workshop! We’ll just break into separate groups and brainstorm on three action points for these problems within 20 minutes!”—Jack snapped.
“F*cking workshop???” He typed angrily in his personal Notes.
But Jack stopped himself from continuing. He was amazed at what he just did. Wow, what emotion is that? What is that?
After a moment of hesitation, he deleted the curse. There was now only the word “workshop” on the screen. As Jack stared at it, he started thinking.
Why would he be that angry?
Was it because he knew that these kinds of unprepared “brainstorms” were so ineffective, and he got annoyed because he really valued effectiveness? No.
Was it because he felt the boss was not being serious and professional? No.
After 1 minute—which felt like ten—he realized the truth.
It was fear.
Jack hated dealing with strangers, but there were quite a few managers in the call that he didn’t know well. There were even a few guys that he knew but wanted to keep a distance from because he didn’t like them.
What if he got assigned into a group with the people he disliked? And then he must discuss these fuzzy topics that he wasn’t prepared for? What if he acted or said something stupid? How much effort would be wasted on trying to wear the diplomatic mask?
Jack had no one to blame. His anger came directly from his own insecurity, selfishness, and prejudices. Not his boss. Not anything outside.
With a deep breath, Jack rewrote the note. “Workshop? - WOW”.
Challenge accepted. Time to go out of his comfort zone.
The meeting went extremely well afterward. His team did great, and he personally got to show off one of his recent favorite initiatives. Plus, he learned about two great insights from his teammates.
That would never have happened if Jack hadn’t caught his own negative emotion, dug deep, changed his own version of the story in his head, and had the courage to deal with it.
Next time when you get really upset—try this. Say “Wow!”, then ask, “Why?”.
