EQ::Adaptability (Very Important for SW Developers)

"Many people believe that having a successful relationship (work or otherwise) mostly depends on finding the right person and doing the right things.

We often don't see how we relate to another inevitably follows from how we relate to ourselves.
Our outer relationships are but an extension of our inner life.
We can only be as open and present with another as we are with ourselves."
---- John Welwood

....From Elizabeth Soltis .. again ...

Emotions and Thoughts are interconnected ... Understanding this relationship supports our EQ development. Using a combination approach of consciously exploring our emotional and cognitive habits enables us to to "rewire" for enhanced performance .

How People Tend to Think
As people grow, we develop general rules about the world and ourselves. In our attempts to understand the world and our place within it, we tend to use the process of induction -- the building of general rules from an accumulation of specific examples. Yet, humans can be poor logicians. We do not have all the information we need. From our personal experiences, we have to piece together the general rules of how it operates.

We have also been conditioned to interpret and respond to the world in fairly predictable ways by our primary caregivers. Through their influences, we have developed certain filters and lenses through which we view the world. We tend to forget these lenses exist and sometimes cause us to have some distorted ways of thinking and understanding the world.

The other challenge lies in the fact sometimes we get too much information to deal with. Humans are not passive recipients of sensory data from the world around them. We actively process and interpret information. Yet our five senses are capable of taking in much more information than our brains are able to process at one time. Thus we need to simplify the information streaming in through our senses before we can use it. We therefore cut corners and take shortcuts in our thinking to better handle the sensory load.

The biggest challenge is that people do not realize that we are doing this and assume that we are responding to a direct readout of that world, one that is comprehensive and accurate. Many people do not realize that they are engaging in an "interpretation" process. Our perceptions may indeed be faulty.

Understanding How We Can Think in Unbalanced Ways
As humans, we make fairly predictable mistakes in our thinking processes. There are basically two ways that we seek to interpret the world: causal inferences, answering the "why" questions; and implication inferences, answering the "what next" questions. We need to learn how to answer these questions internally in a balanced way. Unfortunately, many of us tend to limit ourselves by thinking in terms of:

• "Everything" versus "Nothing"
• "Always" versus "Never"
• "Me" versus "Not Me"

Some people have a dominant style of this extreme thinking; while others shift back and forth between extremes. It is possible, however, to develop a balanced way of thinking and behaving by being self-aware.

Recognizing and Avoiding Thinking Traps
Humans experience common "thinking traps" as they try to make sense of the world. These limiting ways of thinking make it challenging for us to act in adaptive ways.

1. Jumping to Conclusions - making assumptions without relevant data...
1. Practice slowing down.
2. Ask yourself: What evidence do I have to support my conclusion on. Am I certain or am I guessing?
3. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to look for “concrete data”!

2. Tunnel Vision – sampling and registering only select scenes and details from the environment...
1. Practice refocusing yourself and broadening your perspective.
2. Ask yourself: What is a fair assessment of the entire situation? What is the big picture? How important is this one aspect to the big picture?
3. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to look for “all relevant facts”; and also use the “Green Hat” brainstorming technique to explore innovative options for the big picture!
4. Use the “Systems Thinking” for a balanced view with big picture perspective.

3. Magnifying and Minimizing – overvaluing and undervaluing events in your life...
1. Practice striving for balance.
2. Ask yourself: Were there any good things that happened? Did I do anything well?
3. Alternatively, if you tend to dismiss the negative, ask yourself: Am I overlooking any problems? Were there any negative elements that I am dismissing the importance of?
4. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to look for “all relevant facts”; and also use both the “Yellow Hat” and “Black Hat” thinking for positive values and negative concerns respectively!

4. Personalizing – the tendency to attribute problems to one’s own doing; only seeing the internal causes of a problem and systematically ignoring the external causes...
1. Practice looking outward.
2. Ask yourself: Did anyone or anything else contribute to this situation? How much of the problem is really due to me and how much is due to others?
3. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to look for external causes with “concrete facts”; and also use both the “Red Hat” and “Green Hat” thinking for emotions without logic and creative ideas respectively!

5. Externalizing – the tendency to blame all problems on external causes...
1. Practice holding yourself accountable. (This introspection habit to internalize causes is useful for continuous self-development.)
2. Ask yourself: What did I do to contribute to this problem? How much of the problem is due to others and how much is due to me?
3. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to look for internal causes with “concrete facts”; and also use both the “Red Hat” and “Green Hat” thinking for emotions without logic and creative ideas respectively!

6. Over-Generalizing – when you make “always” and “everything” explanations about things...
1. Practice looking more closely at the behavior involved.
2. Ask yourself: Is there a narrower explanation than the one I’ve assumed to be true? Is there a specific behavior that explains the situation? Is it logical to indict my or anyone’s character (worth as human) based on this specific event?
3. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to look for specific facts with “concrete focus”; and also use the “Green Hat” thinking for creative ideas!

7. Mind Reading – when you believe you know what others are thinking and act accordingly. Or you expect others to know what you are thinking...
1. Practice speaking up and asking questions of others.
2. First ask yourself: Did I make my beliefs or feelings known directly and clearly? Did I convey all of the pertinent information? Am I expecting the other person to work hard at figuring out my needs or goals?
3. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to share the facts with your TEAM; and also use the “Red Hat” thinking for expressing TEAM members’ emotions!

8. Emotional Reasoning – when you draw conclusions about the world based on your emotional state...
1. Practice separating your feelings from the facts.
2. Ask yourself: Have there been times when my feelings didn’t accurately reflect the facts of a situation? What questions must I ask to know the facts?
3. Use the Factual “White Hat” thinking from Dr. Edward Debono’s “Six Thinking Hat” framework to learn the “neutral facts” with “journalistic objectivity”; and also use the “Red Hat” thinking for articulating your emotions! Then separate the facts from emotions.