How to Read The Human Emotional Data Field

Leadership includes as a core skill the ability to read the emotions of others. Reading emotional data fields must be learned and mastered; it is not intuitive or automatic.

Emotional Data Fields

Emotional data fields are the emotional information that we transmit every moment. The data includes information gleaned from eyes, facial expressions, tone tonality, voice speed, and body language to a lesser degree. Words can provide some emotional data, but generally not very much. This is why ignoring the words and paying attention to the emotional data is important.

After years of studying emotions and teaching emotional competency, I have learned that reading emotional data fields requires one to convert unstructured data to structured data.

Emotions As Unstructured Data

One of the main differences between structured and unstructured data is how easily it can be subjected to analysis. Our brains can search and process structured data. Our brains have a much more difficult time understanding and analyzing unstructured data. The process is challenging as unstructured data can’t be worked with until it is structured.

In my experience, many leaders see emotions as unstructured data (although they would not say so). Because our culture believes in the myth of rationality (that which makes us human is our rational capacity), many leaders see emotions as weak and irrational. Consequently, our culture in general and our educational system in particular place no value on understanding emotions as data. Thus, emotions are seen as unpredictable, chaotic, messy, and uncomfortable.

As a result, many leaders have a limited emotional vocabulary and no efficient way to access that vocabulary to understand the emotional experiences of others. They have poor empathy skills. Without a vocabulary and a structure to organize emotional data, many leaders simply cannot understand the subtleties of the emotions around them. In short, to them, emotional information is unstructured and therefore inaccessible. They consequently characterize emotions as messy and touch-feely and decry “soft skills” as not worthy of executive attention. Of course, the research shows this attitude to be costly to a company’s profitability. Nevertheless, the attitude persists.

Structuring Emotional Data

Structuring emotional data is simple once a conceptual framework is created. I teach the framework of emotional data as a layered cake.

Emotions come in groups, not as individual experiences, and can be categorized into six layers:

·????????Anger Emotions

·????????Dignitary Emotions

·????????Fear Emotions

·????????Shame Emotions

·????????Sadness Emotions

·????????Abandonment Emotions

The six layers adequately describe the vast repertoire of everyday emotions. Once the layers are understood, a leader can use the layers to structure emotional data.

The Anger Layer

The anger emotions lie on a continuum from enraged to mild annoyance. The most common emotions in the business world are anger and frustration.

The Dignitary Layer

The dignitary layer includes experiences that may not technically be emotions. However, they are so common that treating them as emotions is useful. Common dignitary emotions in this layer include:

·????????Feeling treated unfairly or unjustly

·????????Feeling unappreciated

·????????Not heard or listened to

·????????Feeling disrespected

·????????Feeling unsupported

These feelings are common in people who report to managers. They account for much team dysfunction, low morale, poor communication, and low productivity.

The Fear Layer

The fear layer includes fear, feeling scared, terrified, frightened, concerned, worried, and anxious. The emotions of anxiety and worry are widespread in business environments.

The Shame Layer

The shame layer includes shame, humiliation, guilt, and embarrassment.

The Sadness Layer

The sadness layer includes sadness and grief.

The Abandonment Layer

The abandonment layer includes feeling betrayed, abandoned, unloved, and unlovable. This is the deepest layer and is usually the source of anger and rage in the top layer.

How to Use Structured Emotional Data

I teach a three-step process for calming angry situations and creating deep empathic connections. Let’s assume that you are confronted by an angry investor. Here’s how you use structured emotional data to calm the investor down.

Step Number One: Ignore the Words.

Angry words can trigger your own emotional reactivity. To protect against that, ignore what the other person is saying. You don't need to hear it, so turn it into white noise. Because an angry person will not say anything you have not heard many times before, you will not miss any vital information.

Step Number Two: Read the Emotional Data Field.

The anger is obvious. However, understanding the structured emotional data underneath the anger is the secret to learning to calm someone down. Those emotions might be:

Frustration

Feeling disrespected

Feeling unjustly treated

Not feeling listened to.

Not feeling appreciated.

Feeling anxiety

Feeling scared

Feeling shamed

Feeling embarrassed.

Feeling abandoned.

Feeling unloved

Our brains are hardwired to read the emotions of others. All we have to do is not get in our way. Simply be silent and wait for the emotions to float into your consciousness. This will only take a second or two. As you become aware, mentally place the emotions in the appropriate layer.

Step Number Three: Reflect Back the Emotions With A Simple "You" Statement.

This is counterintuitive because most people think that telling another person how they're feeling is condescending, rude, or manipulative. In truth, neuroscience has shown us that this process of reflecting emotions, called affect labeling, is the only sure way to calm someone down.

You might have been trained in active listening, a term coined by Gordon Thomas, a 20th-century psychologist. Unfortunately, Thomas's work was misinterpreted, which led to the adoption of "I" statements as a form of active listening. If you have taken any active listening courses and tried using "I" statements, you know they don't work. If they did work, you wouldn't be reading this article.

We now know from decades of field experience and neuroscience that only "you" statements are effective.

Putting Structured Emotional Data To Use

Here's how you would respond to each of the types of anger I described above:

Safety is threatened. You would say, "You are not feeling safe. You are a little scared. You're really pissed off and angry." Notice that you started in the fear layer, then went to the anger layer.

No control. You would say, "You are anxious and don't feel like you have any control. You are really pissed off and angry. You're worried." Again, you would start in the fear layer and move to the anger layer.

Disrespected. You would say, "You feel disrespected. You feel ignored. You feel like nobody is listening to you. You feel invisible, and it really pisses you off." Here, you start in the dignitary layer and then move to the anger layer.

?Shame. You would say, "You are angry. You don't feel listened to. You feel disrespected. You feel shame and embarrassment. You feel like you've been treated unjustly and unfairly."

?Addicted to the high of anger. You would say, "You feel really good about yourself. Your anger makes you feel like you're in control and powerful. You feel like no one can mess with you when you're enraged. You like the feeling of dominance your anger gives you."

?Moral judgment. You would say, "You feel outraged and indignant. You feel disrespected because nobody's listening to you. You feel like you have been rejected. You feel like your beliefs are being threatened. You feel like what you most strongly believe in is not important."

?Hatred. You would say, "You have a deep and abiding hatred. You feel deeply violated. You are extremely angry. You feel betrayed."

?All you are doing is reflecting the emotional experience of the angry person. You're not trying to solve the problem. You are not trying to fix anything.

?You know you succeeded when four things happen. First, the angry person obviously calms down. You'll see a nod of the head and some verbal response like "Exactly!" You'll see a dropping of the shoulders and a sigh of relief. These unconscious cues have calmed the emotional centers of the angry person's brain.

?Learning how to calm someone down takes practice and skill. It's not easily self-learned. I have created a series of courses that will teach you the skills reasonably quickly. The initial course is called Developing Emotional Competency. DM me if you are interested in learning more.