Understanding and managing emotions: a tool in the service of HR

Interview with Diego Ingrassia – “Understanding and managing emotions: a tool at the service of HR” – SEPTEMBER 2018_ PEOPLE&KNOWLEDGE N.131

The Italian version of the Emotion Atlas is born.
It is an interactive tool designed to help us become more aware of our inner experiences and to acquire useful supports to effectively manage our emotional reactions.
It was made available in Italy (it can already be used on the web) by I&G Management, a consultancy and management training company with 30 years of experience and a reference point in Italy in emotional skills.
“The Atlas of Emotions stems from the Dalai Lama’s desire to create a map of emotions to help us all develop a ‘calm mind’ that is more aware of our emotional experiences and the reactions connected to them,” says Diego Ingrassia, CEO of I&G Management.
Behind the project, however, are also Paul Ekman – “psychologist and researcher, the world’s leading expert on non-verbal communication related to emotions and a long-standing friend of the Dalai Lama” – and his daughter Eve, as “an expert in the development of emotional awareness”.
“The Atlas of Emotions is intended to be a compass that guides us through the world of emotions and enables us to understand how they are triggered, what happens in our bodies at a physiological level when we are at the mercy of an emotion, what behavioural response can result and how to exert more control over the triggers,” Ingrassia continues.

Leveraging to generate well-being

The Atlas of Emotions condenses the most up-to-date psychological research on the topic of emotional competence, reporting results that are agreed by 88% of the scientific community.
“In the initial phase of the project, it appeared necessary to create a common dictionary capable of identifying and defining emotions on a verbal level,” continues the CEO of I&G Management.
“Knowing how to correctly name emotional states is in fact the first fundamental step towards being able to recognise them and to discriminate them according to their family”. The Emotion Atlas describes five major families of emotions, with their subcategories: fear, joy, anger, disgust and sadness. “Using this tool, one learns to name emotions correctly, starting with physiological and behavioural signals, and to learn useful strategies to improve one’s relationships.
The first step to emotional awareness is in fact ‘knowing how to describe how we feel and identifying the element (the person, situation, memory, perception, etc.) that generated our emotional state’.
Then we need to ‘observe our reactions’: ‘Sometimes it is difficult to be in control of our behavioural reactions and to understand whether our response will be constructive or destructive. If we recognise emotions as they arise and are able to understand when their intensity becomes maladaptive, then we can improve our well-being. In this way we can delay our behavioural response, trying to make it coherent and functional to the context we are in,’ Ingrassia argues.
The Emotion Atlas is not a paper product, however, but a digital tool that can be used online free of charge.
Why this choice? “In this way, everyone can have access to it,” says the manager. “The spirit of this initiative is to make these skills available to all those who decide to approach and deepen this subject, before embarking, if they wish, on a specific training course”.
The objective that I&G Management, as a partner of Paul Ekman International, has set itself is precisely that of “divulging it and making it operational in Italy”, undertaking to “keep it constantly updated with new research in the field of emotional intelligence”.

Becoming better managers

The Emotion Atlas was designed to help teachers in particular, as Ingrassia explains.
“As early as the first years of school, children should be educated about emotions and the development of emotional intelligence, in order to strengthen their confidence in dealing with relationships, but also to prevent deviant behaviour or emotional disorders. Understanding this can help develop empathic communication that can defuse destructive emotions and direct them towards more functional emotions and behaviour’.
However, emotion education is not just for children, but concerns us all, in both private and professional life.
And for managers, it can be a valuable ally in everyday (working) life.
“The Emotion Atlas can be an important tool to start developing one’s emotional intelligence. Being emotionally intelligent means listening actively, observing the other person, being able to read emotional manifestations or attempts to mask them. Managers who have developed their emotional intelligence are adept at mediating conflicts, because they are able to grasp the moods within the team, to translate them into unexpressed needs, and to support the team in achieving its goals’.
Today, in fact, the manager is no longer required (only) to ‘devise effective business strategies for his collaborators to implement’, but needs to go further. “Each collaborator is first and foremost a person, with his or her own history, characteristics, values and emotions; if the manager is unable to identify, understand and manage them, he or she will hardly be able to do a satisfactory job,” Ingrassia concludes.