STARTING TO THINK ABOUT EMOTIONS

To start to think about emotions as a manager you will have to think about yours and your employees . Both are in the same location so both need attention. There is limited precedent for managers to start thinking about emotions, so this is where you can start raising your emotional management Grade Point Average. (GPA) You can start today to become fluent.

The word "emotions" can bring up an emotional reaction because traditionally emotions have seemed difficult to define. Most simply put, emotions are human feelings, sentiments, and sensations. The science of emotions studies physical, mental, and spiritual constructs to describe "feelings." Feelings are intangible although the results of emotions and feelings can be quite tangible . Emotion is the stuff of love and hate, peace and conflict, music and poetry, art and madness, politics and principles, philosophy and religion. Emotions are defined and redefined, scientifically analyzed , researched, dissected and sorted into bite- sized categories. Emotions are completely unfathomable and exquisitely human. Any attempt to define, much less comprehend the emotional nature of human beings, for the purpose of mandating or controlling human emotional response, is whimsy at best, and dangerous at its worst.

You can learn to expand your emotional vocabulary and explore the fascinating complications and ambiguities that are human emotions. Human emotions are more wonderfully complicated and dynamic than most people can imagine. Many people spend so much time avoiding and suppressing their feelings that they have actually come to believe they are controllable. Paul Ekman, in Emotions Revealed , explores just one aspect of emotions in cross-cultural research on facial expressions as windows to emotional states. He writes , "It is hard to overestimate the importance of emotions in our lives." Scientists, writers, philosophers , poets and mystics cannot agree on what an emotion is, but most would concur that the existence and importance of emotions, in life as well as the workplace must not be ignored. Avoidance and denial of emotions, especially at the workplace, is not only a behavior it is also an emotion. Thinking about emotions is different than feeling emotions. Both are necessary to have a complete and comprehensive appreciation for human experience. And managers, in the midst of the chaos, need to be leaders of human experience to understand and feel emotions. Thinking about emotions is a precious journey that doesn't end in an adventure that never fails.