I have always wondered why people react differently to the same situation which then leads to different outcomes – positive or negative. In the past I have had situations where I could have reacted differently leading to better outcomes. Sometimes that’s how we learn (from our mistakes) and evolve as human beings.
I’ve lead many different teams and collaborated with various different people at all levels in the business. And over the years I’ve found that the way we react to certain situations is based on our past experiences, emotions, language, values and beliefs.
I remember a member of my team in a previous organisation used to have a short temper. All the other team members would avoid seeking any help from this individual because of his mood swings and behavior. In one of my 121 meetings with him I shared my feedback and explained how it was affecting our teams’ productivity. He went quiet for few seconds and said “That’s how I am, can’t help it!” I asked some fundamental questions to dig deeper into this and explained to him the concept of “what’s going on inside”. The below illustration covers it in more detail:
Above picture illustrates how we process external information and based on our past experiences, emotions, values, beliefs etc. we react.
Let me explain. When we process any external information it gets auto-filtered in our heads as we have filters in our head, knowingly or unknowingly. Researchers have found that majority of men delete most of the information and only process what in relevant or important to them. Whereas, women distort most of the information they receive which is quite true at least with my wife. We generalize the information based on the categories mentioned in the picture above. Based on the categories, we take the meaning out of it as positive or negative. If the meaning is positive, we feel positive, which then reflects in our behavior- resulting in a positive body language.
Similarly, if we take negative meaning from the information we processed- we end up with a negative feeling, which then reflects in our behavior – resulting in a negative body language.
However, the good news is we can change our behavior and our body language no matter what the situation or circumstance is. Its all in our control.
Lets see how. Lets assume you take the negative meaning from a situation based on the categories, you get a negative feeling but instead of reacting quickly – you pause! You create a gap of a few seconds before reacting to the situation. This is where your intelligence comes in to help you control the situation and act accordingly resulting in a positive behavior.
You can create this gap at any stage – meaning, feeling, physiology, generally easiest between feeling and physiology. Usually you’ll find the way you feel about an event or information is much harder to control or change. Once the gap is created, you have control over the situation and hence over the outcome of it too.
It is this gap that can help us better handle situations and in turn our lives – both professional and personal to make better and right decisions.
Like most things in life, this needs practice though but the key here is to take that pause. Whenever a situation arises, remember to create a gap in your mind for few seconds to think what outcome you want and change your reaction accordingly. Gradually this will become a habit.
When I explained this concept to that team member, he got emotional and said he wished he was introduced to this earlier as this goes to explain some of his behavior and the way he reacted to certain situations. That individual worked on it for months and noticed a significant improvement in the way he reacted to situations. Even the team noticed this change and were far more comfortable around him which was great to see.
Bottom line is that if we see this world as it is without adding any filters or judging a situation or a person based on our past experiences, emotions or beliefs, we could build better relationships, handle difficult situations better and make the right decisions.
Hope you all found the above interesting!