What Are Emotions - Assignment Example

Q1. What are emotions? It is better to understand emotions rather try to define it. Emotions are reactions of nervous system, but so are feelings andthoughts, so how they differ. Let us try to understand. Speaking physiologically, our nervous system comprises of Sensors, which gather information from the surroundings; Processors, which process these information to generate actuation signals and Actuators, which actuate the actuation signals received from processors. In the process of evolution different levels of sensing, processing and actuation was established to react to the ambience. Accordingly, emotions, feeling and thought are response of nervous system at different level of processing and actuation. Of these, the emotions are processed and actuated at the lowest level and therefore, are most honest and crudest form of response. These persist for very small time period. If they persist for longer, they have more processing and actuation time and become feeling. If they persist for still longer, they are given sufficiently longer processing capabilities and become thought. Emotions are very important for development of our personality. They are indicative of the health of our nervous system. However, they are not so welcome in our professional life, where we need to appear as being controlled by our thought process, rather than emotions. However, sometimes, in professional life we need to pretend to have emotions suiting to the occasion for short period of time. In this situation, the first emotion I will have is Sympathy with Mr. Tony and Angst against Ms. Rosalee. But will try to suppress both of these as a Manager. Ms. Rosalee is having fear caused by insecurity as she has risen from among her peers and Mr. Tony is frustrated and angry having been fire up for no fault by Ms. Rosalee. Q2. Thinking process is a more mature process as against Emotional make up which is true and quick response. In thinking process, processing of information is done at the highest and most sophisticated level. All that we have learnt over the long evolutionary period helps in making up the thinking process. While emotions are what we retained from our reptilian stage of evolution, thinking is more of a mammalian character. Thinking process is more important to a manager as he is expected to work with his brain and not with heart. At the same time, he should not be seen heartless by his subordinates and therefore, he needs to shows appropriate emotions, even if false. Emotions and thinking process work in tandem. Emotions come first and with time its intensity falls and the thinking process steps in. Q3. At the workplace employees and managers are expected to behave under control of their brain and therefore, there is very little space for emotions. However, to maintain the atmosphere lively, expression of positive emotions are acceptable, like cheering some great positive news. There may be sad situations and sad emotions are also ok. But when it comes to anger, this is not acceptable at the work place. a. Among peers, who understand each other, emotions can be vent with maximum safety. This is very good for the psychological health of personnel. b. Emotions can not be open to questions as they are natural and nobody should try to question Nature. It should be accepted. On the other hand the associated behavior is open to question, because on workplace everybody is expected to behave or conduct themselves with accepted norms. Like you may have anger due to a decision by your superior, but that is OK as long you are not throwing paperweight to hit him. You are free to have a fresh look at your anger or even go to the superior bosses to complain, that will be acceptable but throwing paperweight will never be tolerated. Q4. It was not really an issue only because we proactively took care of such possibilities by promoting communication. It was decided by consensus that any instance of misunderstanding or doubts should be spoken about with all the members of the task force. This was done to avoid building up of charge, it should be borne in mind that communication works like conductor and thereby avoids build up of tension, misunderstanding etc. If there is no build up of distrust, there can not be any spark or explosion. Therefore, the key to avoid outbreak of ugly emotions at the work place is enhanced communication. Communicate regularly with your subordinates, with your peers and with your superiors. Q1. Recent experience ............. Recently I had a very negative experience at my work place. I have three housekeeping managers working under me who are assisted by a team of 25 executives. Before, I joined; there was no grouping of executives under separate housekeeping managers. To ensure accountability and better services, I grouped the executives under the three managers John, Jack and Jimmy. As Jack was in charge of room services, he was allotted 11 of executives while the others were allotted 7 each. This created a sense of elevation of John among Jack and Jimmy and there was lack of cooperation towards John by other two managers. This started affecting quality of service to customers with complaints increasing day by day. I tried to communicate this but somehow right message could not reach to Jack and Jimmy, who were out to show John down. Recently on the New Year eve there was very high pressure on room services and John requisitioned services of two executives from Jimmy. I was out of station on a very important meeting and this was a good time for Jimmy to settle his scores with John. He refused pare his executives under some alibi. This led to embarrassments to hotel as some serious complaints came from customers. Upon arrival I was informed of the incident and when I summoned Jimmy he offered some petty alibi. This enraged me a lot and I asked to go on leave with immediate effect. Now when, I look at the incidence, I feel probably, I should have done a better reorganization, with rotating the managers in different roles only to appear honest and not partial towards John. Besides, I should have appeared honest to all three managers so that they could have communicated their feelings with sincerity and I would have got better feedback from them. As a manager I failed to read mind of my subordinates. This is the reason why I called Jimmy the very next day and asked him to resume his duty. Q2. First I sought his explanation and upon hearing his futile response I just shouted at him. I put question mark on his abilities as a manager and on his sincerity. I must say that I did not choose my behavior, at least during the initial moments that followed his futile response. Like emotions, one cannot choose his/her behavior to express the emotions. However, some people like to put a very heavy control over the way they will behave under emotions. This may have some merit, but I look upon such practice as something unnatural and detrimental for emotional health of an individual. While one should not let his emotions being expressed in a way to hurt him or others injure physically, even usage of uncivilized language can not be acceptable; but at the same time there should be sufficient freedom to the body to relax itself from the force of emotions by some tangible expressions, let it be slightly raised voice of disapproval, let be shut up or get out. There should be something tangible so that there is no residual stress due to the emotional force as such residual stresses deform or even fracture personality over a period of time. It is better to vent your ire, it is better to cry your moments of joy rather to live under pressure of these emotions for ever. I could have done it differently, but that would have been more harmful not just to me but to Jimmy as well. I could have listened to all he said, disapproved it all and would have put a negative remark in his appraisal, but that would have hardly conveyed the message and even bolstered his perception of I being biased toward John. I am quite OK with the way I resolved the conflict. This is the way I resolved the conflicts but such occasions do not repeat very happen as I try prefer to proactively mitigate such situations by communicating with my subordinates on regular basis. Q3. Conflict resolution … Conflict resolution is one of the most important activities of managers. This becomes very important in hospitality industry due to higher level of work pressure and resulting high stress levels. For conflict resolution, a manager should have unbiased view of his subordinates, not only he should be unbiased he should as well appear unbiased. In this connection managing emotions and expression of emotion becomes very important. While a manager or for that matter anybody can not and should not be devoid of emotions, he should be emotionally well balanced. Not only that a good manager needs to master the art of reading emotions of those he is dealing with – customers, subordinates, peers and superiors and behaving himself accordingly. He needs to display artificial emotions in a natural way as per demand of situation. This is not an easy task as this requires having a split personality during working and this has spill over effect. This means in actual life as well he will start having a split personality and this has its own negatives. Resolving a conflict involving customers is most important in hospitality industry. In this industry a manager can afford to lose an executive or two but not a bad reputation from a customer. Besides, customers tend to be highly demanding, they are justified to do so. They can afford to express their emotions in a way a manager can not. It is duty of a manager to resolve the conflict in a way that is appeasing to the customer even if it means compromising on right / wrong to some extent. Sometimes the conflict may involve his subordinate and a customer. In this case the resolution should be such that the customer remains happy at the same time moral of your executives should be protected. All this requires efficient management of emotions and expression of the same. The bottom line is a good manager should be able to ride over his emotions and in no case he should let emotions ride over him. Q4. From these exercises and this experience I could rediscover certain things about myself and emotion management at the work place. I am introvert as I look inside myself to analyze origin of emotions. Not just that I feel it is better to be introvert as such a manager does not keep pointing fingers on others for any mistakes. I rather prefer to start from myself. If there was a fault, whether I owe the mistake or I did my best and someone else failed. At the same time being introvert has its own disadvantages like someone else who is an extrovert will find me an easy scapegoat, whenever there is a fault and there exist even remote possibility of linking it to me. Also, what I realize is that it is expected from a manager by his subordinates, by his peers and even by his superiors to be extrovert. I am intuitive as I plan well and at different stages in planning I gain an intuition of other possible outcomes and their relative probabilities. I am thinking as I like to go to the root of a problem. For this I analyze a problem, a conflict in detail. I look upon it from different angles. I do start with a hypothesis, but at the same time I explore the other and even extreme possibilities. I consult my peers and let my conclusions open for peer review. In the end I go by what is most logical, but even at this stage I leave some space for course correction if required by changed inputs. I hardly let my emotions ride me for over a second at the worst and start looking upon it or thinking upon it. I am not judging rather I perceive. I do not like to judge and never in a hurry. Because I know that hurried judgments can go wrong most of the time. The other problem with judgments is that it is not easy to reverse or correct them. On the other hand a perception can always be modified or corrected based on changed inputs. In my opinion a good manager should be perceiving rather than judging. Q5. I chose this question for my exam as this offered me to look back at my experiences especially in connection with emotions. Looking back at one’s emotions provides him with an opportunity to explore his personality and make suitable course correction. Looking back at emotions and its outbreak is very important for managers. A manager is expected to work with his brain and ride over his emotions. On many occasions he is expected to pretend having a particular emotion suiting to the situation. All this is possible if he keeps visiting his emotions time and again and tries to manage them by different exercises of meditation etc. Besides, it is important for a manger to communicate substantially and effectively with different sets of people he interacts with – like customers, subordinates, peers and superiors. During all these interactions his ability to manage emotions is vital for his success as a manager. The exercise on emotions and experiences offered me to rediscovered myself and carry out necessary course correction for me. This is the reason why I chose these questions for my exam. Read More