Welcome to the Emotional Economy : Part 3

Follow this Path: How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential
by Curt Coffman, Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina, Ph.D.

(Page 3 of 4)

This, great organizations know, is the basis of the particular talents you bring to everything you do.

For instance, if your brain highway has strong connections for communication, you will be able to teach others around you rather complicated issues that can be translated into understandable stories. Or, on the other hand, if you work with someone who is forever saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person, he is not acting out of malice. His communication connection is weak; he can't find the words to connect to the level of the person he is communicating with. Customer service is obviously not the place for him. Likewise, another person's brain will send her the right word time after time in the heat of a debate while a colleague will suffer word deprivation at the most critical moments. Obviously, the second person is better suited to dealing with customers than the first.

This is borne out by the work of University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman, who has devoted much of his career to the study of what can be learned and unlearned. In his book What You Can Change and What You Can't: Learning to Accept Who You Are, he writes that an individual can change his opinions and preferences-but the manner in which he perceives the world around himself cannot be changed.

Furthermore, recent discoveries in neuroscience reveal that talent and better-quality performance involve not just the frontal lobes - the decision-making brain circuitry that houses intellect-but also the amygdala. The circuits that color experiences with emotions reside in this almond- shaped structure; anytime action trumps reason, your amygdala is working overtime. Thanks to these recent discoveries, we know that emotions are indispensable for adequate rational thinking.

In his book How the Mind Works, Massachusetts Institute of Technology psychologist Steven Pinker notes that emotions are the mechanisms that set the brain's highest-level goals. Once generated toward a favorable activity, an emotion triggers a "cascade of sub-goals that we call thinking and acting with no sharp line dividing thinking and feeling." In other words, emotions drive our reactions, which, in turn, are ruled by the innate talent we possess and our propensity to be emotionally engaged. Our natural predispositions explain our distinctive experiences.

Studies of top performers show something even more remarkable. When forced by a situation to make a split-second decision to operate at top speed, or when faced with the pressure of doubt, top performers report something distinctive. They say that a part of them feels several steps ahead of what is going on. This helps them take control and anticipate possible alternatives for action. Where to pause, stop, and go is part of the package. Talent is their guide. Scientists use the world "supra-conscious" to describe this.

So there it is: Superior performance is not the exclusive product of the rational mind, no matter how appealing it is to business to believe this is so. Talent does intelligence one better, because it combines and utilizes the full circuitry (rational and emotional) of the brain's neural connections in the endless pursuit of a productive outcome.

Quality performance does, of course, require knowledge and skills - but talent makes it happen. And while individuals always operate in conditions of uncertainty (another fact that gives companies the jitters), their talent is an unsinkable life preserver. As long as it is acknowledged and utilized, innate talent always comes through, helping employees make better decisions and achieve finer results. In essence, talent and engagement are emotionally driven. In tough economic times, talent and emotional engagement are the only natural competitive advantages.

In his book Synaptic Self, reviewing the neurobiology of emotions, Joseph LeDoux, professor of science at New York University's Center for Neural Sciences, notes that "In spite of the tremendous similarity of our brains, we all act differently, have unique abilities, and have distinct preferences, desires, hopes, dreams, and fears. The key to individuality therefore, is not to be found in the overall organization of the brain, but rather in the fine tuning of the underlying networks."

Is it any wonder that great organizations make use of the brain's natural pathways? They are the reliable roads to continued success.

Reason and Emotion: It's a Chemical Reaction

Have you ever wondered why you prefer to watch the news on a certain television channel? Or why your kids "must" eat one special cereal morning after morning? Or why your family chooses to return to one resort year after year?

In the past, customer choices were regarded as being rational. Now we know something new. Emotions, to a very large degree, determine what customers respond to, what they buy - and what they keep returning to.

However, just as sight was not considered a legitimate proof of evidence in Galileo's time, emotions have long been regarded as elusive, "a baggage of evolution," subjective and almost impossible to measure objectively. For more than a century reason and emotion have been considered to be independent of one another. Reason has been viewed as the predominant characteristic of human beings, while emotions have been seen as the weaker human trait. Because of this, many people believed that reason could oppose and control emotion. How could someone be both rational and emotional? It just didn't make sense.

Emotions are the mechanisms of the mind least understood by management. Still, organizations have tried to trigger emotions by using all types of symbols - brands, products, and technology - and spending millions on advertising that appeals to the senses. But the least applied and the most powerful transmitters of emotions are human beings. And of all the sources of emotional stimuli, the human voice and face are the most effective emotional markers. Every human interaction either elevates or downgrades the emotional state of a human being.

Copyright © 2002 by The Gallup Organization

About the Author

Curt Coffman is the coauthor of the New York Times business bestseller First, Break All the Rules and The Gallup Organization's Global Practice Leader for Q12 Management Consulting.

Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina is Global Practice Leader -HumanSigma- at The Gallup Organization and co-author of Follow This Path: How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential. His Gallup discoveries help corporations significantly increase their revenue and profit growth rates by managing their emotional economies. This includes measuring, describing, understanding, and developing emotional engagement among employees and customers through HumanSigma™, Gallup's management breakthrough system for driving revenue and earnings growth in highly competitive environments.