5 Habits That Let Emotionally
Intelligent People Adapt To Anything
The ability to stay flexible and open-minded in uncertain times isn’t
just a personality thing. It also depends on what you do.
Adaptability has always mattered in the
workplace, but with automation on the march and many industries experiencing
major upheavals, it may be a more crucial skill now than ever. Whether you’re
an entry-level employee or the CEO of a company, knowing how to cope with
change and uncertainty is pretty much nonnegotiable.
By now it’s hardly news that emotional
intelligence is key to thriving in
the future of work, thanks to the habits and behaviors it encourages. Here are
five that highly emotionally intelligent people tend to practice–which anyone can
tap into in order to adapt to change.
1. THEY RECOGNIZE
WHEN THEY’RE GETTING TOO COMFORTABLE
When confronted with change, most people
decamp back to their proverbial comfort zones. It’s a natural first
instinct–staying with what you know–not to mention the easiest. But over
the mid- to long-term, it can make you rigid and inflexible.
Emotionally intelligent people aren’t immune
to this knee-jerk reaction. They simply tend to more aware when it’s happening.
That’s the crucial first step toward overcoming the urge to stay with the
tried-and-true and move instead into uncharted territory. After all, awareness
precedes any possibility of action. Simply knowing your
typical behavioral patterns and emotional drivers gives you an advantage in
dealing with sudden new variables.
Brené Brown put this aptly in her 2015 book Daring Greatly: “Vulnerability is not weakness, and the uncertainty,
risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional. Our only
choice is a question of engagement,” she writes. “Our willingness to own and
engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the
clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being
vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.”
If you can’t first recognize when you’re
clinging to cozy habits–and, in Brown’s words, “engage with” your discomfort at
the idea of changing them up–you’ll never find a way to break with the old.
2. THEY ACKNOWLEDGE THEIR
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
Change brings up feelings from both ends of
the emotional spectrum: excitement and anxiety. In their just-published
book The Power of
Vulnerability, authors Barry Kaplan and Jeffrey Manchester
point out the obvious perils of the latter: “The fear will tug at your sleeves
and attempt to pull you back into a spiral of second guessing.” Their advice?
Don’t try to suppress that anxiety. “Acknowledge it, be thankful that the
presence of the emotion keeps you grounded, and then move through it.”
No one adapts to change and uncertainty by
trying to ignore how it makes them feel. Recognizing your negative emotions is
the prerequisite to managing and moving through them successfully. Not
sure just how to do that?
Here are a few
ways to start.
3. THEY SOLICIT AND CONSIDER
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES
Instead of insisting on their way or looking
for just one right way, emotionally intelligent people
understand that their own point of view is merely that–and they aren’t
discouraged by the knowledge that their beliefs have inevitable biases and
limitations.
Grasping this reality is essential for considering
new ideas, including those that may be totally contrary to whatever
you’ve believed in the past. Needless to say, adapting to change
requires approaching new and untried initiatives with an open mind, and a
willingness to take risks on them. (It’s one reason why recruiting expert
Yewande Ige recently shared with Fast Company that she asks
every job candidate, “Are you willing to be wrong about your opinion on the
world?”) Instead of increasing friction in the workplace, emotionally
intelligent people serve as the lubricant for ingenuity to flow more freely in
fast-changing times.
4. THEY READ NONVERBAL CUES
Amid any change, there’s likely to be
resistance that can sabotage the process if it isn’t dealt with. Some may want
to be seen as being open to new things and yet feel very
differently inside. Emotionally intelligent people intuitively understand how
group pressure might compel others not to voice their misgivings. So they try
to predict wherever unspoken reservations might be lying dormant, then draw
them out productively.
This takes an awareness of verbal
nuances as well as
nonverbal cues. It might sound like an odd habit for
cultivating adaptability, but making a conscious effort to practice reading
others’ body language can help you home in on and address what what your
coworkers are feeling. This won’t just sharpen your own emotional
intelligence, it will also help you win your colleagues’ support so you
can all adapt to new circumstances together.
5. THEY DON’T REACT HASTILY TO
SETBACKS
Anyone trying to succeed in a fast-changing
environment will encounter surprises, setbacks, and failures. They key isn’t
avoiding those obstacles, it’s handling them effectively. Emotionally
intelligent people don’t automatically revert to the old way of doing things as
soon as a new approach falls short. Instead, they typically avoid reacting
until they’ve had a chance to think things through and decide how to move
forward. Often doing nothing (for now) is better–and more difficult–than doing
the wrong thing too quickly.
The key is being able to sit with a problem
long enough to think through the best way forward. It takes patience,
composure, and listening skills to bring everyone together and come up with a solid
group consensus. Instead of looking to lay blame for setbacks, they’ll be
focused on solutions.
BY HARVEY DEUTSCHENDORF
https://www.fastcompany.com/40514381/5-habits-that-help-emotionally-intelligent-people-adapt-to-change?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Weekly&position=7&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=01122018
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