A Question Of Emotions

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Communication always involves an exchange of both facts and feelings. But in business situations, such as negotiations, people often overlook the importance of managing feelings and emotions – their own, but also those of their counterparts. Yet a successful netofiator needs to be not only a master of facts, but also a master of emotions. Here we examine the origins of emotions and look at strategies for dealing sensitively with the feelings of others in order to facilitate collaborative decision making.

1.Understanding emotions

The first thing we have to do if we want to master our emotions – and the emotions of others – is to understand exactly what it is that has to be mastered. Emotions come in various shapes and sizes, of course, but can essentially be reduced to those that characterize positive or negative states, e.g. happy / sad, calm / irritated, excited / bored, relaxed / edgy, cheerful / depressed, etc.

2. Emotions as a risk

  • Wasted time leads to inefficiency. Negative emotions cause deffensive reactions that stop us from listening and cause us to focus our attention on justifying our own actions and positions. Our efforts go into pointing out why others are wrong and we are right.
  • Loss of respect leads to inflexibility. As we criticize and blame others – justifying our own position and looking for weaknesses in the positions of our counterparts – we lose respect in their eyes. If we display unfair and insensitive attitudes towards others, this can reduce their willingness to be flexible towards us.
  • Less trust leads to fewer opportunities. Senior managers are likely to disapprove if you have problems with managing your emotions. More over, they will have less faith in your ability to manage pressure and complexity. Less trust also means a lower degree of openness and creativity, leading to worse solutions during complex negotiations.

3. Using positive emotions

Positive emotions present an opportunity. If we can produce energy and optimism in others, they will listen to us more closely and be more open for our ideas. They will also become more flexible and perhaps collaborate with us positively in future discussions as well.
Let`s look at communication strategies we can use to handle the related emotions:

  • The need to feel valued. If people do not have the feeling that you value their efforts and contributions, they can quickly become closed to your arguments, growing defensive and agressive in the face of perceived attack.
  • The need to feel connected. People are social animals who need connections to others. Negative emotions are quickly generated if we feel separated, isolated or rejected. During a negotiation, it is important to build a sense of togetherness to facilitate a willingness to support each other with necessary compromises to reach a common goal.
  • The need to feel independent. We want connections, but we also value our own space and our right to think the way we do and to influence our lives with our own decisions. When that scope is removed, we can feel pressured, trapped and dominated, and are likely to react aggressively and defensively.
  • The need to feel respected. Most people experience negative emotions if they have the feeling that their counterparts do not respect them. Respect can come from many sources: appreciation of expertise, recognition of ethical values and behaviour, understanding of difficult life experiences suffered by a person. The important thing is to communicate respect in therms that people can understand, particularly during tough discussions. This helps to keep negative emotions away from the negotiating table.

4. Influencing others

Effective negotiators need to master emotions, particularly the emotions of their counterparts. If we stimulate negative emotions in others, then our ability to influence them and to build relationships and conduct successful negotiations with them diminishes. The best way to stimulate positive emotions and negotiate more effectively is to direct our communication to managing the four key human needs: the need to feel valued, connected, independent and respected.

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How Women Can Learn to Help Themselves

There are many ways How Women Can Learn to Help Themselves
Photo by CC user Kendl123 on Wikimedia Commons

Over the past few decades, we seem to have been inundated with self-help books, courses, programs, and more. Some of these are very good, others are absolutely terrible. Either way, the self-help industry is worth billions of dollars and has a presence all over the world. And thanks to self-help offered through Oakland womens counseling, women all over the world feel like they no longer have to be subservient to their husbands.

Female Issues

In the past, the man was the only provider to the household, which meant any type of counseling was geared towards them as well. Women, after all, should be fine as they could live their life in enjoyment, looking after house and home. Luckily, this has changed a lot and there is now a lot of help out there for women. And it is needed, because women continue to have a hard time with the media enforcing ideas of perfect body images, perfect relationships, and more. Through self-help, however, women are able to grow in their health, whether mentally, physically, or spiritually.

Women all over the world continue to be marginalized and objectified, and the media has a huge role to play in this. What women look for is someone who has been through what they are going through, and have come out victorious. They want to hear from someone who speaks in a language that they understand. This is why they love women like Oprah Winfrey, for instance, who has come from a life of extreme poverty and has grown into one of the richest women on the planet. She has battled racial issues, body issues, relationship issues, financial issues, and more.

Of course, sometimes self-help books and programs are no good at all. It is all too easy for someone to write a book and claim that it will help women change their world. You have to be very critical in this, in other words. While you can trust someone like Oprah Winfrey to a degree (she is a lot of things, but she is not a counselor or psychologist), you can’t trust any book that seems to be on the shelves. A recommended plan of action is to visit a counselor, preferably one who focuses on women’s issues, and have some therapy. They can then provide you with recommendations on which self-help books do work and which ones you need to avoid.

Women face very complex issues and it is heartening to see that we now live in a world where this can be openly discussed. Unfortunately, women’s issues are starting to be commercialized, with capitalism and the media always trying to find an opportunity to make more money. Try not to become a victim of this, since you, as a woman, have already been the victim of thousands of years of patriarchy, media bias, the glass ceiling, oppression, and more. It is time for them to truly take the power back and to learn how women can learn to help themselves in order to achieve that.

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