There’s no place for emotions in business and medicine.
Or is there?
Even Dr House, the poster boy of hyper-rationality, used emotions.
Over the festive break I became addicted to the US programme ‘House’. In addition to enjoying the humour, entangled relationships and gaining a medical lexicon, I valued watching it from the lenses of a coach and facilitator.
Indeed, I’ve been recommending it to my clients. (I made it through all 177 hours! Well it was cold and wet outside, and Omicron restricted my social activities).
I was fascinated by Dr House’s dismissal of emotions in the diagnostic process. He constantly argued in favour of rational processes. Yet most of his breakthroughs in treating complex symptoms came from his intuition. It wasn’t linear thinking that revealed the solution. It was connecting seemingly unconnected dots, experimenting and testing, acknowledging that he made mistakes and that he didn’t know.
His intuition and unconventional solutions were also stimulated by the collaboration of his team members, who continuously tested his ideas. They too were very bright doctors. Yet they observed and engaged much more with their own and their patients’ emotions to elicit insights and answers. On the face of it Dr House outsourced emotional engagement to his team members, especially the women. Yet what drove him was his love of puzzles; his joy and satisfaction at solving the seemingly insoluble.
How do you engage with emotions to come up with solutions?
In your experience which emotions enable trust, collaboration and creativity?
If you find managing your emotions challenging and want to explore how to engage with your emotions to your best advantage contact sylvana@sylvanacaloni.com or call +44 (0) 7952 068133.
