Happy Friday, everyone!
I have a daughter who is studying abroad, which is driving me to spend time thinking about how to aide her towards patterns that are healthy.
I ran into a diagram about human emotions during a video about music theory. The video was describing the properties of various chord progressions and the feelings they tend to generate.
In this diagram, there are six fundamental emotions represented:
- Fear
- Anger
- Disgust
- Surprise
- Sad
- Happy
In this model, only 1/6 of the fundamental classes of emotion we experience are about flourishing. 5/6 of our fundamental emotions are about fight or flight instincts. That’s a lot of opportunity to feel anything but Happy. During my weekly call with my daughter, I ask how she spends time cultivating feelings of hope, playfulness and inspiration.
These are not naturally easy discussions. Anyone with a teenager knows you must go where the conversation goes. Structure helps remind me to stay positive and consistently nudge her towards positive outcomes.
This has lead me to think about what it means to invest time into building team happiness. It’s affecting my perspective about what kind of team I want to build. I think it’s helpful- which is why I’m sharing this with you today.
When I get feedback from peers and partners, this chart helps me do a check to discover if trends are developing that require a change. Security teams get better engagement when partners trust you. People using language associated with emotions of fear, anger, disgust and surprise give you a signal about your impact.
I look at the language my partners and peers use and explore where they align against this wheel.
Ask yourself if the feedback you receive is aligning with the emotions you’re hoping to cultivate in your teams. If you’re ending up in emotions you didn’t anticipate, you may need to explore how you can rebuild trust.
The larger video isn’t great, but I liked the chart. If you’re more interested in the music theory discussion, you can check it out here:
Happy teams require intention. What are you doing to cultivate confidence, courage, provocative inspiration, confidence and respect in your teams?