Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as Emotional Quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in constructive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict; and take action aligned to our larger purpose and values. Dialog is an organization that helps institutions and individuals achieve their fullest potential.
Ms. Rashmi has been conducting Emotional Intelligence workshops for Leaders in Organisations, as well as students - to help them gain awareness of their strengths and weaknesses, think rationally, and gain more confidence.
1. EQ is a very broad field and is often overlooked. What is the importance of EQ in student life?
Ans: From a college perspective, EQ talks about managing yourself, your interrelationships, your behaviour when you hold positions of responsibilities, or even how you manage your time and academics.
The idea is that when you experience difficulty- we all do when we are working with people as well as in managing our goals-- emotions flood us. Especially in a conflict or challenge, there is an emotional hijack, and anxiety or anger overwhelms us. We usually get into a freeze, fawn, fight, or flight situation. The challenge here is to take action, to ‘stay and play’ instead.
For example, when you are facing issues with someone, you should try to talk to the person, bring up the issue instead of talking to another third person or turn away or ‘lose it’. This doesn’t serve a purpose. So, ‘staying and playing’ requires us to first become aware of our emotions and say that right now, I am anxious, that I am not being liked, or not being seen, or that I'm angry because I'm not able to get across to this person. And once you become clear that it is the emotion that is flooding you, then you accept the emotion and say that yes, this emotion is nothing but a bundle of energy, which is landing on my body. And once you accept this, certain choices become available to you - a wise mind and you now ask yourself, what do I want to do?
2. You’ve also worked in other fields like sociometry, psychodrama. What is psychodrama?
Ans: Psychodrama is a method for exploring problems and conflicts by enacting relevant events instead of simply talking about them.
The enactment explores not only external behavior, but also ‘inner’ aspects, such as unspoken thoughts and feelings, fantasies of what others might be feeling and thinking, envisioning future possibilities.
You can say it is a kind of laboratory for the exploration of psychosocial problems, but instead of physical equipment, the devices of drama and participants' own behavior are vehicles for experiments.
It thus helps us look at patterns of our responses to triggers, difficult people, and situations because of the neural pathways in our brains, and form new patterns.
3. How did you get into these fields? How were you like in college?
Ans: In college, I was interested in psychology but you know, you think that you're interested in something else, because of what you're seeing around you and the messages that you receive from parents, society and what you see friends doing. So I thought I was interested in science, and engineering and then through a vertical transfer I got into management at BITS Pilani.
Sometimes fate thankfully nudges you in the right direction, and you follow these clues.
4. Was there any major incident or person that influenced you to explore psychodrama and sociometry?
Ans: It started when I went to my first job. I realized I was creating problems for myself, I was not able to get projects completed in time- because of many reasons- not getting along with people was one of them. As a newbie, I was not able to get the cooperation of my colleagues who had been here for a longer time. And as a newcomer, this becomes particularly important.
I went into such a bad situation that when I joined with seven other management trainees, everybody got the first promotion, and I didn't, and it was a very shocking time. Then I realized that what matters is not just hard work. While hard work is essential, I realized that something was missing and I wanted to understand what it was. It was Emotional Intelligence. And once I started getting a hang of it, I went very deep into the subject.
When I saw my peers, I realized some people come with an innate sense of advantage in this area. One of the reasons was that at their family dinner tables, one of the parents held positions of leadership, and such things were discussed. And there was nothing like this in my family. Or there could be inborn traits as well.
In the beginning, I felt a sense of inadequacy that I had a low ‘EQ’, but then I accepted that. Everyone starts at a different point and what you make of your learning curve is really up to you.
5. Today there are a lot of choices, let it be about your career or other walks of life and that makes deciding hard. How best do you think people can strike a balance between what interests them and what they are good at?
Ans. I think that there is no harm in taking what seems right to you at that moment because we chose a particular decision or option based on the wisdom that we have at that moment. And that's fine. But along the way, you will get signals and cues from your environment, from yourself, from people you meet and that might cause you to relook at old choices. And that is also fine, to recalibrate and to shift and to move on. So there is no better choice than you can make at any given point. And what you choose is fine, so long as you are willing and open to review this as you go along. It requires you to be both courageous and curious to listen to the ‘call of the heart’.
6. People need to understand and develop their EQ. What could we do to improve EQ culture on campus?
Ans: It would help if there were avenues for students to consciously look at these frameworks, you know, workshops, or inviting people to address students. Although I also think that at that age, many students don't have the wisdom to know that this is going to be useful to them.
Perhaps everyone has to just wait for the right time to develop this.
Also, it's important to put yourself in uncomfortable positions. What this means is, do things that challenge you, which stretch you, which are unfamiliar. One thing which I remember from my college life is that there were certain things which I had dared not to, like, take a position of responsibility, or even sometimes speak to those 'cool' people. And I think the best thing that one can do is to try things that push you out of your comfort zone and fall flat on your face, but try. Take up positions, and roles, you will make mistakes, you will feel very rotten about making those mistakes. And that is also fine.
7. Did working at Pfizer before setting up your venture help in any way?
Ans: I think that every situation that you go through, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, productive or unproductive, good bosses or bad bosses, every situation is very valuable to you. But I learned a systematic and thorough way of working, a rigour, a commitment to excellence. As I'm talking, I'm realizing that my time at BITS also would have taught me similar things.
8. Some issues that women today face on the work front are gender discrimination and workplace harassment. Would you like to give them any advice on how to deal with this? Have you ever been in such a situation?
Ans. Yes, I have. During my time - 35 years ago - there was not enough clarity that something is harassment or that one can call it out and say that it is inappropriate, people just worked around them. Now there is more awareness about the issues.
Women do experience this freeze when somebody is rude or somebody is crossing the boundary. And in that phase, they are not sure how to react. So to start with we have to become aware that this does happen to women, and no need to blame the self for having ‘frozen’. If you are not able to get out of this freeze, it's okay but then take help, talk to people, read about it, and address the issue.
9. Do you think that people of different genders have different controls over their emotions?
Ans. Women by their physiology are more empathetic and attuned to feelings of themselves and others. The female body tends to respond to stress with a flush of different hormones, including Oxytocin, which is a biochemical catalyst to ‘tend and befriend’ response; while the estrogen fueled response of men is the typical ‘fight and flight’. This is an advantage when it comes to connecting, collaborating, and being inclusive in today’s complex business world.
Yet it can be a disadvantage as women may be too sensitive or overreact when challenged or criticized.
Also when women are chained to stereotypes of nurturer and cheerleader, when unpleasant emotions like envy and jealously surface, they are unacknowledged and repressed. It results in unhealthy behaviors like withdrawing, sulking, and building dark stories in the head about the other person and backbiting.
Men on the other hand respond to competition and jealously by either confronting head-on: ‘What the hell are you talking about?’; or with humor: ‘Ah, so you’ve climbed on your high horse again? Let me get a ladder for you to come down.’ The key thing is that it is addressed, and the men move on.
So these differences do exist and it is helpful, to know the natural differences.
10. What are your hobbies? Any new habits that you developed during this lockdown?
Ans. I like reading and I love gardening. I grow bottle gardens in my house, called terrarium. These are self-sustaining miniature gardens. I think for me, the COVID brought in a lot of focus because the distractions are removed. Of course, the pleasures of going out and traveling are not there but I find that I am much more productive now. And I think it has also made me realize that the future is uncertain. I don't know if I will achieve my dreams, we don't know when this will end. So everything has to be done now. It has brought in a new intensity and focus. This is a completely new situation and we're all exploring and trying new things.
11. What is the best takeaway you’ve had with Dialog?
Ans: When I meet clients and they tell me that our interaction or the coaching experience made a difference in their lives, it is always very rewarding.
12.Is there anything you'd like to say to the Psychodrama and EQ aspirants of BITS?
Ans: It is an area of huge growth possibilities. It is very active, unique, and special because three things are happening simultaneously: you are making sure that you are growing because you have to keep holding a mirror to yourself- because what you teach others you better be following it yourself; second, you're enabling others to grow, and third, you're also progressing in your career. So it is an area that should be explored for sure.
Interview by Brahmini and Sahithi