Not only do people actually say negative things to us, we tend to interpret things negatively, says Robert Cooper, Ph.D., author of “Executive Eq: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership & Organization.”
Part of emotional intelligence is learning to manage emotions and coordinate information from the different parts of our brains. Our reptilian brain sends strong survival-oriented emotions tending along the lines of “Danger!” Or “Mate!”
It’s instinctive to us to protect ourselves, and one thing we do is examine other people’s statements very carefully looking for the “danger.” We’re hyper-alert, as it were.
This means when we hear an ambiguous statement like “This is the report you wrote for me,” we start reading things into it. And rarely do we come up with something positive.
According to Dr. Cooper, if someone makes eight positive statements to us, and one negative statement, we’ll focus on the one negative. So how does that make your day go? And the worst part is that we don’t speak to one another in this 8:1 good:bad ratio. Cooper presented statistics suggesting that in the workplace, it’s 8:1::negative:positive. In families it’s 12:1, and in the schoolroom, it’s 18:1.
What can you do with this information? Consider correcting your thinking and being more positive, and when you’re talking with others, make it your mission to personally change that ratio. Isn’t there enough negativity already?
Read the whole article by Michael Finley here:
http://www.mastersforum.com/archives/cooper/cooper-r.htm
Susan Dunn, MA, Marketing Coach,
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