Emotions can be an important part of a conversation and can add power to communication. They also can be a distraction. Recently a team member dropped the ball again. This had happened several times. I understood the demands on her time, and I also needed to know what I could count on. So when her main message was:
– “I feel awful about this.”
it didn’t give me what I needed to hear. I didn’t want her to feel bad. I wanted to know she would come through for me so I wouldn’t be left doing what she had committed to.
I’m a fan of psychology and emotional intelligence and knowing what we feel. In it’s place. We are emotional beings. If we exclude emotions from our business conversations and pretend they don’t exist, we can miss an important communication element.
But when you try to convince someone they should keep you on the team after you’ve dropped the ball several times, it’s good to acknowledge your chagrin and essential to provide concrete reasons to let the other person know they can count on you in the future, even when they couldn’t in the past.
I would have loved to have been able to keep this lady on the team, but I needed someone I could count on. We faced the facts and parted amicably. I was sad about the decision myself – but also happy because I knew she didn’t have time and we made the right decision. It took some genuine emotional intelligence to look at the facts and move on.