Sense and sensibility

IF YOU"VE ever watched the adventure programme, `Survivors' or `Who dares wins,' you'd understand what it is to win against all odds, overcome your fears and undertake the most daring feats to win the prize money. As you watch the programme however, you begin to realise that more than money, it's the mental and emotional flogging a contestant actually undergoes to develop a degree of endurance and perseverance to overcome the obstacles.

This scenario can be likened to a corporate entity, which is like a `mine field' of opportunities. To get ahead or plan a successful career, you must be willing to undertake a few `daring feats,' (difficult decisions, hiring and firing, and also learn to face the music when things don't work out), learn to mitigate your fears and intelligently transform unsavoury experiences into positive learning during your tenure.

When a person enters the corporate world, he not only learns the ropes of the trade but also how to climb them (and swing from them!). There are of course, times when he slips and fumbles over others inviting a lot of contempt and criticism. But once he masters the art of applying thought to action and emotion he soon moves ahead.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the art of applying thought to emotion. EI and professional success are closely linked. Emotional intelligence is a degree of self-awareness, which aids you in assessing and responding to situations in a mature and intelligent fashion.

Emotionally savvy

Emotional intelligence comes into play when you use emotional responses to tailor your `comfort behaviour' to suit an occasion. With a number of corporate establishments becoming `learning' organisations, employees are led to consider their workplace as an extension of themselves. It's a tricky deal to be `yourself' at the workplace without becoming vulnerable to professional goof-ups.

This is when you have to tap all your reserves of emotional intelligence. It helps you to adopt behaviour that engender healthy workplace relationships, ensure maximum productivity, and help you improve your on-the-job learning. EI is a powerhouse of resources that can be used to:

Stay mindful of self-destructive/ unproductive mind blocks

Stay clear headed, without getting overwhelmed by workplace demands or conflicts

Understand interpersonal relationships

Help you reason out unreasonable behaviour

Aid atavistic learning

Retain a sense of emotional well-being

Distinguish between success and failure

Prevent using emotions as a crutch

Managing emotions

Draw on your emotions as a resource. A high degree of emotional intelligence will help one create a social map of understanding that will aid the individual identify the social roles, acceptable behaviour, norms, etiquette and degrees of social freedom.

This involves employing your observational, listening and general awareness skills. Honing them to a degree where it becomes second nature to pick up such information and cues from your surroundings and consciously deploying them to manage change.

The social aspect

Social acceptance at the workplace hinges a great deal on one's social and emotional responses. Every organisation and social milieu has its share of `popularly unacceptable behaviour'. Pick up social cues for such behaviour, store them away for future reference, observe acceptable behavioural patterns, and watch your own emotional responses. Utilise this knowledge to fit in.

Organisational change

Difficult economic situations demand drastic measures. This causes companies to often resort to equally extreme measures or incorporate sweeping changes in their style of functioning. During such trying circumstances, organisations often train their employees to be more emotionally intelligent in dealing with change, diversity issues, age barriers, and bridge the communication gaps between the management and the workforce.

SAMYUKTA KODA

samyukta.hyd@cnkonline.com