Executives and Emotional Self Awareness


A major problem impairing an executive's performance is his Emotional Blind Spots. Emotions, whether we like them or not, have a significant impact on one's decisions. An example is the Enron case where executives ran into severe ethical and legal consequences after falling prey to the destructive negative emotions of greed and self-interest. It is perplexing how many success driven executives, choose to fear addressing the impact of negative emotions on personal and organizational performance.

Helping executives become aware of the Emotional Blind Spots that cause them to steer into perilous decision making territory has helped them make better decisions and feel powerfully more secure in themselves. To help achieve emotional self-awareness we use a powerfully new coaching tool, the Mind Resonance Process? (MRP) which allow executives to succeed.

We illustrate MRP with this case:

Following an economic downturn the CEO of a mid-sized public company was faced having to outsource some of the company's services and cut back on staff in order to reach annual performance goals. He felt extremely torn as he valued his staff's potential. Not meeting annual goals meant seriously risking losing shareholder confidence. Deep within he knew riding through the storm with staff on board would make the company stronger in the long run but his fears urged him to think short because he might not be around in the long run. Afraid to make a decision he might live to regret he contacted us.

With him we addressed some key emotional issues that were preventing him from navigating the storm with peace of mind. These included the following:

1. The fear of losing his job

2. The sadness around having to let staff go

3. The fear of regretting a bad decision

4. Worries of how a bad decision would affect staff morale.

Of these we addressed 3) first, as it was the most incapacitating. With MRP we addressed this fear directly by having him look at two aspects of it:

a) What was the fear doing to him?

b) What did the fear suggest it was doing for him?

The MRP Analysis:

A) By helping him feel the effects of this fear, he realized it was paralyzing him in his ability to make any decision. In other words the fear was ruining him.

B) By helping to uncover what he thought the fear was doing for him, he realized that it was "supposedly" helping him to avoid making bad decisions and carefully thinking through the consequences of the options available to him. In other words the fear was supposedly making his life smoother.

The analysis revealed:

1. A and B were contradictory and could not be simultaneously true

2. That A felt true and B felt false for him

3. He was unknowingly accepting B as true i.e. was lying to himself about the benefits of the fear

4. Acceptance of the lie allowed the fear to remain anchored in him, paralyzing his ability to make confident detached decisions.

We helped him

1. Relinquish the lie

2. Relinquish the fear

3. Create a vision of him as detached and confident.

Following MRP he calmly and confidently made decisions he could live with and his resilience to stress increased immeasurably.

MRP is also effective for:

- Improving leadership abilities and performance.

- Opening up creative and intuitive potential

- Challenging ethical issues.

- Reducing stress and improving health

MRP is accessible through personal coaching, live workshops, and ongoing teleconferences.

Copyright © 2005. Arrizza Performance Coaching Inc., All Rights Reserved

Dr. Nick Arrizza: Executive Coach, Author, Speaker, Performance and Stress Researcher, & Developer of the Mind Resonance Process? Web Site: http://www.telecoaching4u.com