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Emotional Intelligence: It’s Not What You Think

Increase stress-resilience through emotional

intelligence

What is Emotional Intelligence

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“The ability to recognize the meanings of emotions and their relationships and problem-solve on the basis of them.Emotional Intelligence is involved in the capacity to perceive emotion, assimilate emotion-related feelings, understand the information of those emotions and manage them.” Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. (2000).

Models of emotional intelligence. In R.J. Steinberg (Ed.), Handbookof intelligence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress.

“a multifactorial array of interrelated emotional, personal and social abilities that influence our overall ability to actively and effectively cope with demands andpressures.” Bar-On, R., & Parker, J.D.A. (2000). The handbook of emotional intelligence. San Francisco: Josey Bass.

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An Interdisciplinary Model

Emotional Intelligence is essential for dealing with the complexities of the networked world

Interpersonal skills are as essential as medical knowledge and technical skill in the operating room

Medical errors – with resulting complications and sometimes catastrophic outcomes for patients – were found to be directly related to communication failures among medical and surgical teams.

Social, relational, and organizational factors - are complex and relate to hierarchical differences, concerns with upward influence, conflicting roles and role ambiguity, and interpersonal power and conflict.

Michelle O’Daniel & Alan Rosenstein, “Professional Communication and Team Collaboration” Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality April 2008.

Role influences our perception of events.

A study exploring communication in the Operating Room found a profound disconnect among members of the same surgical team. Communication was perceived to be:

poor by the anesthesiologistsadequate by the nursesgood by the surgeons

“Teamwork and Communication in Surgical Teams: Implications For Patient Safety” Peter Mills PhD et al Journal of the American College of Surgeons Volume 206 Issue 1 2008 107-112

Complex systems are made up of individuals at different hierarchical levels who must constantly interrelate.

Crew Resource Management (CRM): Emotional Intelligence in the Cockpit

The Army Safety Center reported that crew coordination failures – failures to communicate effectively, perceive situations accurately and effectively distribute the workload - directly contributed to the loss of hundreds of lives and $292 million in aviation accident costs.

Implementation of Crew Resource Management training resulted in significant improvement in aircrew’s overall mission effectiveness: Overall mission effectiveness +20% Navigation accuracy +38% Mission objectives +44%

Gary Grubb et al, “Sustaining and Enhancing Performance Improvements Achieved by Crew Resource Management Training” Dynamics Research Corporation

High-stress and high stakes require calm, communication and cooperation

CRM is Applied Emotional Intelligence – used to train emergency medical personnel, cockpit crews, firefighters and other high-stress, high-stakes professions

Communication – listening, speaking directly and respectfully to others, making intentions and perceptions clear, receiving feedback;

Situational awareness – attentiveness to the present moment, dynamic attention, observation and perception of many things at once;

Decision-making – the ability to choose a course of action based on the immediate facts and realistic options;

Teamwork – recognizing the role of each team members, openness of communication among team members;

Barriers – recognizing factors that inhibit any of the above factors, e.g., prejudices, interpersonal conflict, blind spots

Crew Resource Management, International Association of Fire Chiefs

Emotional intelligence corresponds to information processing capabilities of different areas of the brain

Emotional Intelligence is composed of the following discrete abilities: perception and expression of emotion; integrating emotion with thought; understanding and analyzing emotion; reflective regulation of emotion.

Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. (2000). Models of emotional intelligence. In R.J. Steinberg (Ed.), Handbookof intelligence. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Morland,

Emotional Intelligence and stress

The ability – or intelligence - to ‘read’ and manage emotions in the self and others is a moderator in the process of dealing with the stress response, which limits or shuts down higher cognitive functions.

“In essence, emotional intelligence is considered to account for individual differences in the capacity to process information of an emotional nature and to be able to relate these to wider cognitions. As such, EI is not about emotions per se but more about the way in which individuals effectively integrate emotions with thoughts and behaviour and so can act to reduce aversive emotional experiences.”

Slaski, M & Cartwright, S “Emotional intelligence training and its implications for stress, health, and performance” Stress and Health 19: 233–239 (2003)

The Amygdala: the brain/body’s alarm system

Psychological threats trigger the amygdala in the same way as actual physical danger

The amygdala triggers the release of cortisol, which redirects energy from the intellect to the senses.

When cortisol levels are high:Working memory is reducedDistractibility is increasedInformation processing is reducedEmotional reactivity is heightened

The amygdala triggers the biochemicals needed to respond to a single threat. However, once secreted these chemicals stay in the body for hours, and each successive surge adds more to the levels already there.

A high level of stress hormones can have a cyclical effect- keeping the amygdala in high-alert mode and leading to emotional over-reactiveness to even minor threats and the ongoing sense of being threatened.

Emotions are processed through the limbic system

The pre-frontal cortex links to the amygdala through the limbic system

Self-awareness is key to regulating the stress response

Emotional Intelligence as burn-out prevention

EI is associated with the ability to regulate and control the expression of emotions and validate one’s own thoughts and feelings.

Self-regulation increases resilience to the stress response that could otherwise be triggered by the onset of a serious problem.

EI is the use of brain and mind to engage with the tensions of a complex situation rather than react to them.

Mark Slaski and Susan Cartwright, “Emotional intelligence training and its implications for stress, health and performance” Stress and Health Volume 19 2003

“Through increased self-awareness, individuals are more able to detach themselves from events and regulate their emotions in order to prevent them from becoming ‘immersed in’ and ‘carried away’ by emotional reactiveness.”Mark Slaski and Susan Cartwright, “Emotional intelligence training and its implications for stress, health and performance” Stress and Health Volume 19 2003

Find Your Rhythm

Avoiding burn-out isn’t about getting three square meals or eight hours of sleep. It’s not even necessarily about getting time at home. I have a theory that burnout is about resentment. And you beat it by knowing what it is you’re giving up that makes you resentful. I tell people: find your rhythm. Your rhythm is what matters to you so much that when you miss it you’re resentful of your work. Marissa Mayer, Vice President of local, maps and location services at GoogleBusiness Week, April 13, 2012

Find your rhythm and protect it.

“You can’t have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you. And thinking that way empowers you to work really hard for a really long period of time.” Marissa Mayer, Vice President of local, maps and location services at GoogleBusiness Week April 13, 2012

Emotional intelligence grows through increasing connections between emotions and higher cognitive functions

EI can be developed and expand over a person’s entire life

How to develop the core skills of EI

Write in a journal about emotions at the beginning and at the end of the day – be alert to patterns and specific “hot button” issues that show up repeatedly;

Ask for feedback and listen without judgment – others’ perceptions are not without bias but they can be useful in our dealings with them;

Identify underlying motivations that either promote or inhibit effective interactions with others, e.g. “I need to be right” or “Disagreement equals insubordination (or disapproval) so I need to change your mind”

Physical activity that enhances bodily awareness, e.g. yoga or yogic breathing helps bring emotions into focus;

 

“There are more neurons in the brain than there are stars in the galaxy, and we form more than 1 million new connections among these neurons each day.”

Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council

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Know what matters to you

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time this expression is unique. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.” Martha Graham

Resources and References

Bar-On, R., & Parker, J.D.A. The handbook of emotional intelligence. (2000). San Francisco: Josey Bass

“Conflict in the health care workplace” Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, April 2001

Crew Resource Management, International Association of Fire Chiefs http://www.iafc.org/files/pubs_CRMmanual.pdf

Goldman, Daniel; Boyatzis, Richard; McKee, Annie (2004) Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence, Harvard Business Press.

Goleman, Daniel (1998). Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books.

Goleman, Daniel (1995). Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books. Mark Slaski and Susan Cartwright, “Emotional intelligence training and its implications for

stress, health and performance” Stress and Health Volume 19 2003 Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. Models of emotional intelligence. In R.J. Steinberg

(Ed.), Handbook of intelligence (2000) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Michelle O’Daniel & Alan Rosenstein, “Professional Communication and Team Collaboration” Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality April 2008.

Assess Your Emotional Intelligence

Online tests available at: http://www.talentsmart.com/products/

http://ei.mhs.com/EISA.aspx

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Albert Einstein

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