EXERCISE 10.2

Problem Solving

Emotions Affect Decision Making

Purpose

To understand that emotions affect decision making and to use a strategy to gain positive results.

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45 minutes

Participants discuss the impact that emotions have on decision making including research by leading neurologist Antonio Damasio. They role play a situation calling on them to ask specific questions to address the role of emotions as decisions are made.

Outcomes

Audience

Facilitator Competencies image

Advanced

Materials

Time Matrix

Activity Estimated Time
Discuss the effect of emotions on decision making 10 minutes
Distribute handout and review questions 5 minutes
In pairs, conduct the role play 15 minutes
Debrief 15 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes

Instructions

1. Discuss the effect emotions have on decision making using information such as the following:

Well-known neuroscientist Antonio Damasio clarifies the interface between decision making and emotional intelligence in Looking for Spinoza (2003). He writes that emotions play a role in decision making in many ways, both subtle and more apparent, “practical and not so practical, all of which make emotions not merely a player in the process of reasoning, but an indispensable player” (p. 145).

According to Damasio, “Every experience in our lives is accompanied by some degree of emotion and this is especially obvious in relation to important social and personal problems. Positive or negative emotions and their ensuing feelings become obligate components of our social experiences.” As we accumulate experiences over our lives, we categorize the experience, including the outcome of the solution, in terms of emotion and feeling. We then draw on this database as we make decisions creating future outcomes.

2. Ask the participants to share their thoughts and experiences regarding how their emotions affect their decision making. You are guiding them to build their personal awareness.

3. Give participants the Emotions Affect Decision Making Handout and review the key questions they are to follow in their role play.

4. Organize them in pairs with each person agreeing to play one of the roles. Give them six minutes, then have them shift roles and conduct the exercise again.

5. Bring the group together to debrief what they learned. Ask each of them to commit to a specific part of his or her life where he or she will use this process.

EMOTIONS AFFECT DECISION MAKING HANDOUT image

In the following role play you will work in pairs to experience a problem scenario. The “leader” is aware of the impact that emotions have on effective decision making and that he or she is presenting a considerably emotional situation to the “senior supervisor.” Therefore, the leader intends to ask questions that help the supervisor be aware of his or her emotions and to work through them to a positive outcome. At the same time, the leader knows he or she will have emotional responses as well during the discussion and intends to be aware of those emotions and manage them well throughout the discussion.

With this in mind, the leader will ask the following questions during the conversation. The first question in each pair is an internal one for the leader to ask him- or herself; the second question is to be asked directly to the supervisor. At some point in the discussion, show the supervisor this list and discuss the fact that you are using this list to have a more informed conversation.

Any of these questions can be repeated throughout the process to improve success.

Role Play

Leader

As the team leader you have just learned that the project your team has been working on for the last two months has been reprioritized to the bottom of the list and your team will be starting a new effort from scratch as of right now. This new project seems to have less relevance, and it will be harder to measure success. You have scheduled a meeting with your most senior supervisor to give him/her the news and get things started in the new direction.

Senior Supervisor

As the most senior supervisor on a critical project your team has been working on for the last two months, you feel hopeful that in the meeting your boss has just requested you will finally get the scheduling data and specifications you have been asking for all week. When you arrive at the meeting, your boss actually has something different to discuss. Notice your feelings, how they change, how much they change, and whether or not you feel more or less encouraged as a result of the new information your team leader provides.

At one point your boss will show you a list of questions that he/she believes will help you and the team be more successful when you apply them. Explore whether there is a way you can use this model to help you, your team leader, and team work more effectively together.