How would you describe your emotional wake?

 Some people it appears have a compulsive urge and need to make things better.    I know a number of such people well.   I can even tend to this type of engagement myself if I am not mindfully aware and careful.    If you listen to conversations around loss and grieving you see this type of behaviour at its’ sometimes most intrusive.

Not that making things better is necessarily bad. This is a very human drive.   In emergencies it is a very natural response to move to make things better. Underlying this is the assumption of control. We need a sense of control.  We need to rebalance.     Also, when we see someone suffering or grieving we empathize. Our emotions are activated.  But to what degree do we need control over others? And even if we frame it at its’ most benign what type of positive influence can we exert over others? The answers to these questions have serious implications for the world of life and work and more specifically, management and leadership in the domains of work and life.

In specific contexts, the “make things better response” may be beneficial to varying degrees.  However, if you are trying to maintain or build a relationship, trying to make things better can be viewed very negatively by the person on the receiving end.  Resistance is an issue. It’s not that people are averse to change but rather that feeling of being made to change. From a coaching perspective, the challenge is how to have a sometimes difficult, even fierce conversation (as Susan Scott characterizes it) with friends, partners, co-workers or indeed at times our children?

In many respects before you can have this conversation you must first have it with yourself.  How much control do you need to feel secure in yourself? What type of influence do you wish to have? What type of relationships do you wish to have? As its’ most basic how do you deal with the uncertainty of a difficult conversation?   Do you avoid or do you approach?

If you make the courageous choice to approach, it is perhaps the degree to which you are mindfully aware of your own style that will define your potential impact and indeed your emotional wake.   From your experience to date, is that wake judgmental, impatient, or cynical and bored?  Is that wake distrusting, and attached to particular objects and ideas as to how the world should work for you and everyone else.   Is that wake a continuous struggle to achieve and succeed in ways that may be harmful to yourself and others?  These are all important questions not only in the context of others but also your well-being, welfare and happiness over time.

If you make the courageous choice to approach the difficult conversation, you should be aware of the bizarre ways we tend to sabotage ourselves to varying degrees.   Are you aware of how you tend to jump to conclusions, predict the future or blame?  These are just some of the examples of how we distort our world. At HODA (Enlightenment in Arabic) in one of our exercises we invite people to the Restaurant of Distortions. There are nineteen (19) dishes on the menu and we invite people to choose their own personal menu.  It is a fascinating exercise and for some people very revealing as to how they can gorge themselves on this particular menu in this particular restaurant.   Deciding on a better menu (a little diet maybe) for yourself can lead to greater psychological fitness and indeed greater resilience and better use of the powerful energy we all have.

In order to achieve this insight and awareness it is important to listen. We all know the people who hear but don’t listen. I know I hear you buddy, but………….  They tend to be the people who want to make things better the most.  They are really not listening but waiting for you to draw breath and get their own reality and world view back on the table. But, be honest we all tend to do this but some take it to undesirable levels.   If I was you I’d…… but you are not me. You should or you have to pull yourself together. Why? It’s my life. I’m the one suffering the very real loss and bereavement.

In effect if I want to create a positive wake, the challenge is how to keep the conversational space open so that we avoid resistance.  The challenge is also to keep the space open so that whatever might emerge, unfolds and in its own time.  In learning more about the coaching conversation and the psychology underpinning it, you may not fall into the trap of imposing your world view but rather potentially empowering your friend, your partner, your child, your co-worker or your reports. This is the stuff of real leadership and management bound by the glue of a coaching approach where and when necessary. Susan Scott in her book “Fierce Conversations” suggests that our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time”. In learning more about and in mastering this fierce conversation you may redefine your emotional wake for the benefit of yourself and others.  Somewhat paradoxically you may also feel less of a need to make things better while in reality making things much better for yourself and those you share this wonderful journey with.