When Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s emotionally unintelligent outburst was caught on dash cam, leaders everywhere choked, “What were you thinking, Travis?” He wasn’t.
Here’s what happened…
Travis and his Uber driver were discussing the future of ride-sharing when the driver passionately expressed his upset about recent changes at Uber, ultimately blaming Travis.
Instead of asking questions or sharing his own perspective in in a way that preserved respect and forwarded the conversation, Travis hurled a personal insult at the driver, slammed the door, and ran away. Like a child.
And the driver? He rated Travis with one star.
So why do adults emote so ignorantly?
- We operate oblivious to the impact of our words
- We act surprised that others even have emotions!
- We are ill-prepared to respond when they express those emotions, especially ones that feel like a
- personal attack
- And in a fight-or-flight mode, we forget everything we’ve ever read on emotional intelligence
To emote smarter, we need to prepare like a pilot.
Pilots use scenario-based training to mentally prepare for various situations. Routinely, they consider all aspects of a flight and make realistic contingency plans to deal with unexpected events… before taking off.
The rest of us? We go in unprepared and then get defensive, insult, shut down, run away, avoid, ignore, pout, berate, deride, or explode.
So how can we prepare like a pilot?
- Consider all scenarios of a conversation or a situation… before going in
- Make realistic contingency plans for unexpected emotions
- Practice responses to unexpected emotions, especially ones that will feel personal
- Apologize immediately when a contingency plan fails and our defenses get triggered
We can be emotionally smarter if we spend time preparing for the inevitable emotions of others, regardless of our titles and the presence of a dash cam!