Corrections or additions?
These articles by Michele Alperin and Emily Heine were prepared
for the October 11, 2000 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights
reserved.
Emotional Intelligence
By focusing narrowly on getting the job done, corporate
cultures have denied the critical role emotions play in the business
environment. In the view of John D. Mayer, a psychology professor
at the University of New Hampshire, emotions must be recognized for
their formidable effects on relationships among employees and with
customers. “The presumptuous thing we say,” says Mayer of
himself and his colleagues, “is that emotions convey information
about relationships. If you are not sensitive to these emotions, you
are throwing away an important source of information about your
customers
and your company.”
Mayer will speak on “Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace of
the Future” at the New Jersey Department of Personnel’s fall
conference
entitled “Workforce Challenges in the 21st Century.” The
conference
takes place Friday, October 13, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the
Merrill
Lynch Conference and Training Center on Scudders Mill Road. Cost:
$150. Call 609-292-6219.
Mayer began thinking about the place of emotions in human interactions
at the University of Michigan, where he majored in literature and
drama, Class of 1975. After a couple of years at Michigan, Mayer moved
from the Residential College, which housed budding artists and
writers,
to the North Campus Co-op, where the majority of residents were
engineers.
“Although both the artists and the engineers were very
intelligent,”
says Mayer, “there was something about emotional logic that the
artists understood but the engineers did not.”
That “emotional logic” is something Mayer has been trying
to pin down throughout his academic career. He and his colleagues
have developed the concept of emotional intelligence, which involves
“the ability to reason validly with emotional information.”
Mayer’s definition of emotional intelligence is far more precise than
the amalgam of people skills, optimism, and emotional sensitivity
that is popularly associated with the concept. Emotional intelligence
is an ability that comprises four distinct skills:
Perceiving emotions accurately. One aspect is the abilityto read facial expressions.Allowing emotions to facilitate thought. For example,if a supervisor is feeling sad at work and an employee approacheshim with a suggestion, a response that acknowledges the supervisor’semotional state might be, “I’m feeling kind of pessimistic today;try it on me tomorrow.”Understanding emotional meaningsand what relationshipsvariousemotions convey. For example, to a person with emotionalintelligence,the connotation of “feeling guilty” is that he has donesomethingwrong, feels bad about it, and would like to set things right.Managing emotions and behaving in a way appropriate tothem .”Emotional understanding,” says Mayer, “teaches not onlyknowledge of emotional meanings, but a way to behave.” Forexample,an emotionally intelligent person would consider how to work mosteffectively when feeling sad or angry.Mayer explains why an increased focus on the emotional aspectof business relationships is critical to the next step of corporatedevelopment. “Whereas we have made tremendous strides in scienceand technology over the last century, progress in human relationshas been far slower and more frustrating,” he says. As a result,corporate culture is beginning to “recognize that the abilityof people to work together is important for results and that feelingmanagement is an important part of working together.”Mayer makes several suggestions to help corporations improve theirsensitivity to and support of emotional intelligence:”Policies should be written with the understanding thatfeelings are important,” explains Mayer. “As procedures andpolicies are developed, management should keep in mind their emotionalas well as pragmatic implications.”Corporations should recognize that emotional intelligence isnot necessary in all positions. Mayer claims that this view liberatesorganizations from the idea that one should promote only emotionallyintelligent people. For an excellent technician, line engineer, ornon-supervisory scientist, excellent skills and politeness may besufficient.Personnel departments should clarify which positions demandemotional intelligence. “For supervisory personnel, to the extentthat their success depends on good interpersonal relations, it isimportant,” says Mayer. Research also suggests that personnelofficers and customer service representatives with emotionalintelligenceare more successful.Where necessary, train personnel to increase their emotionalintelligence. “I believe emotional knowledge can be taught toa person who is interested,” explains Mayer. One approach wouldbe to use the curricula that are being developed to teach the discreteskills involved in emotional intelligence. Another approach that hasbeen effective is for individual coaches to teach the skills ofemotionalintelligence to personnel who need them.Mayer suggests that it is time to close the gap between progress inthe realms of technology and human relations. Companies that do notpay attention to the role that emotions play will find their neglectreflected in their profit margins. “Emotions convey information,and you have to know that information, or you are not going to doas well as people who do know it,” says Mayer.— Michele AlperinTop Of PageCouples TherapistsCouples therapists often assume “they should helphusbands and wives fight less and work together more before attackingtheir sexual problems,” says therapist David C. Treadway.”Sex therapists typically plunge right in, treating sexdifficultiesmechanistically, as problems to be solved.”Treadway prefers to interweave the two approaches, and he will doso at a workshop at the annual conference of the American Associationfor Marriage and Family Therapy of New Jersey on Friday, October 13,at 8 a.m. Those who attend the conference, at the New Jersey HospitalAssociation’s conference center on Alexander Road, can earn sixcontinuingeducation units. Cost: $140. Call 800-694-4403, extension 4.Treadway earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Universityof Pennsylvania in 1970 and 1972, trained in family therapy at thePhiladelphia Child Guidance Clinic, and took his Ph.D. at UnionGraduateSchool, Cincinnati. He has concentrated on family and couples therapyin his private practice since 1977, and currently runs the TreadwayTraining Institute in Weston, Massachusetts. His first book,”BeforeIt’s Too Late: Working with Substance Abuse in the Family”establishedhim nationally as an expert in family therapy and substance abuse.His second book, “Dead Reckoning: A Therapist Confronts His OwnGrief,” published in 1996, is a very personal account of whathappened to him when he faced professional burnout in his 40s. “Ihad done my own therapy when I was in my 20s,” he says, “andI thought I was finished dealing with my dysfunctional family. Butwhen I went back to my therapist for what I expected to be a tune-up,we found a whole lot of unresolved issues to be addressed.”In particular, he wondered how he could be successful as a husband,a father and a therapist and still lack real emotional commitment.Seeing how his wife grieved when her mother died, he began to questionwhy he lacked similar feelings for his own mother, an alcoholic whocommitted suicide when he was 20. To rediscover his mother and hisyounger self, he turned to his father and sister, both of whom hadnervous breakdowns after Martha Treadway’s death, and to an olderbrother who became an alcoholic, a younger brother and an aunt.With help from his therapist and, surprisingly, two clients, hefinallygained a clearer understanding of his mother. Although she had seemedindifferent to him and her other children, she actually was sufferingfrom terrible insecurities and anxieties. Having gained fresh insightsfrom this voyage into his past, he was able to find new meaning inhis life and work.In his workshop, “Pathway to Intimacy: Gender, Intimacy andSexuality,”Treadway will present a specific treatment model and address thefollowingthemes:Introducing sexual intimacy into couples therapy.Creating a safe and nurturing context for each member of acoupleto explore his or her sexual vulnerabilities and desires.Helping couples celebrate the mystery, frustration and magicof gender difference.Helping couples create a rainbow of sexual possibilities thatinclude being playful, spiritual, routine and spicy.Enhancing couples’ abilities to grow beyond their childhoodwounds and unmet expectations.Exploring the way gender enhances and limits couple therapists.Treadway believes therapists should help couples deal with sexproblems early in treatment. “Couples frequently come to atherapistwith well-worn battles — and no language to deal with their sexualproblems,” he explains. “I prefer to steer away from the fightof the week and into new territory. This approach allows the therapistto focus on feelings to be shared rather than problems to be solved.It can open a very different level of communication and allow thetenderness we all have to come to the surface.”— Emily HeinePrevious StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
