Practice Notes

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Managing emotions at work

One approach we often use to improve people management in a wide variety of conversation, leadership and management programmes is based on Daniel Shapiro’s five core emotional concerns.

They are:

• Appreciation – recognise people’s value
• Affiliation – emotionally connect with staff and peers
• Autonomy – give staff the freedom to feel, think or decide
• Status – recognise individuals’ standing compared with others
• Role – recognise individuals’ job title and related activities

He maintains that we all need to be appreciated for what we do. We need to feel we have an emotional connection with our manager, organisation and people we work with. Being boxed in and losing autonomy is a feeling most of us hate. And our status and role are tied up strongly with our identity.

If you want to read more, try Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate, Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro.
 

Positive psychology update: book and websites

At this time of year we always recommend some summer reading. Because 2009 hasn’t been the best year for many people, we’re focusing on positive psychology.

Check out Biswas-Diener, R. (2008). Invitation to Positive Psychology: Research and Tool for the Professional. London: Saffron House.

Biswas-Diener gives you a basic understanding of positive psychology. This includes the importance of positive emotions, positive psychology interventions, the impact of using strengths, and the importance of hope and optimism. Each of these topics is the lesson of the week, and the sixth week is spent integrating all the pieces together. It’s good stuff!

For further information on positive psychology, here are four websites to browse around.
Center for Applied Positive Psychology (www.cappeu.com). The presentations are useful on this site.
The Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania (www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu). Heaps of stuff on this one.
IPPA (www.ippanetwork.org)
ENPP (www.enpp.eu).