How NASA Builds Teams: Mission Critical Soft Skills for Scientists, Engineers, and Project Teams

CHAPTER 11

Manage Your Emotions to Manage Your Team’s Energy

 

 

 

How important is your management of emotional expressions? Consider this quote commonly attributed to Carl W. Buechner: “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

Emotional Intelligence Is More Important

Dan Goleman caught my attention in 1995 with his remarkable book, Emotional Intelligence. This came from a Goleman article three years later (1998): “. . . psychologists asked senior managers to identify the organization’s most outstanding leaders. They used objective criteria such as profitability to differentiate star performers. Emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important as technical skills and IQ for jobs at all levels. Moreover . . . emotional intelligence played an increasingly important role at the highest levels.”

You already know this if you work in a technical organization. You have seen people promoted to leadership positions because of their technical brilliance but who are clueless about how to manage people. You even have a colloquial name for emotional intelligence; you call it “people skills.”

Naming Emotions So You Can Manage Them

When we are able to name or categorize things, we can begin to manage them. You can categorize emotions into five kid word groups: glad, mad, sad, scared, and love. (Note: There is actually a sixth group, surprised, which we will ignore going forward—it is a bit player.) We now examine each emotion group.

Glad—How ...