By Tyler Reimschisel, MD
As we continue to explore the topic of emotional regulation within teams, this month I would like to continue my discussion of Susan David’s concept of emotional agility. I introduced her work in my last article, and today I will unpack it a bit more. As I mentioned before, my brief articles are a cursory overview of her work—I recommend reading her book Emotional Agility and .
David describes the components of emotional agility as four “movements”: showing up, stepping out, walking your why and moving on. Before we discuss each movement, I would like to consider how she frames emotions as activity rather than mere internal states or experiences. Given the power and influence emotions can have on us, I think the metaphor of emotions as movements is insightful and helpful. It turns out, she is not alone in this conceptualization of emotions as movement. In his book Order Out of Chaos, Scott Walker—an expert in high-stakes negotiation—states, “Emotion can be viewed as energy or even as energy in motion. Experiencing and managing heightened levels of emotion (positive or negative) can be used as fuel to propel you through any challenge or obstacle you may face…” (Walker, 10).
I think David’s four movements of emotional agility can help us navigate effectively so we leverage our emotional energy for positive impact instead of letting it derail us as we work together on teams and in other settings.
With this image of emotions as energy in motion or movements, let’s consider each of the emotional agility movements in turn. The first is showing up, which means “facing into your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors willingly, with curiosity and kindness” (David, 11). The purpose of this movement is to calm our mental processes. In this movement, we do not suppress or squelch our emotions and also don’t let them consume or control us. Instead, with intentionality, we accept that we have them and show ourselves self-compassion and acceptance for experiencing them. Once we do this, we can learn how to work with them in future movements. David writes:
Showing up is not a heroic exercise of will but simply looking our personal tormentors in the eye and saying, “Okay. You’re here, and I’m here. Let’s talk. Because I am big enough to contain all my feelings and past experiences, I can accept all these parts of my existence without being crushed or terrified…” Showing up doesn’t mean wielding a wrecking ball. It means bringing history and context into the equation to find the full significance of what’s there and then putting that understanding to work to make things better.
The second movement is stepping out. Once we have faced our emotions and thoughts about them, we seek to detach ourselves from them so we can observe them for what they are—merely the emotions and thoughts that we have. “If you confront both your internal feelings and your external options—while maintaining the distinction between the two—you’ll have a much better chance at having a good day, not to mention a meaningful life” (David). So, the purpose of this movement is to put space between our thoughts and emotions and ourselves. This “metaview” of our thoughts and emotions is a key factor in our ability to self-reflect and broadens our perspective on our emotions and the feelings of others. She offers several ways to do this, including having a growth mindset, purposefully journaling with acceptance, practicing mindfulness combined with curiosity, embracing and accepting contradictions and uncertainty about ourselves, decentering and considering multiple perspectives and labeling or calling out emotions and thoughts for what they are to manage them more effectively.
We will discuss this more in a future article, but for now, I want to point out that David is discussing our emotions the same way we frequently talk about our thoughts. Comparable to thoughts, in this movement she encourages us to contemplate, consider and come to terms with our emotions. As I mentioned in my last article, emotions are not hardwired to our behaviors such that we must succumb or be manipulated by them. Although it may feel like it when we are emotionally charged, our emotions should not dominate what we say, how we respond and what our actions are. Although they contain energy, they do not need to dictate what we do. As David observes, “Thoughts and emotions contain information, not directions” (David, 105). In this movement, we learn to pause, hold an emotion out in front of us like a metaphorical object, consider it from multiple angles and never let it dominate or control us.
The third movement is walking your why. I think this movement is one of the most intriguing and compelling in her work because it is counterintuitive yet likely to be very useful if consistently practiced. In this movement, we bring our values to bear on how we study, analyze and contemplate our emotions. David suggests that for this movement, we should have clarified and embraced our values and who we want to be as a person. She clarifies that in this context, values are not necessarily moral standards. Instead, they are guides that help us get closer to the way we want to live our lives. As I understand her work, they help ground us in what is important, meaningful, motivating and purposeful for us personally instead of letting society or those around us define those things for us. Then with this grounding, we have the fortitude and confidence to face challenges, including those that create immense emotional responses.
She is careful to point out that this movement does not magically shield us from difficulties. Instead, when we experience those difficulties, the grounding in our values creates clear choice points. She writes:
Each choice point presents you with the opportunity to walk your why. Will you move toward your values and act like the person you wish to be, or will you move away from your values and act against them? The more you choose moves that are toward your values, the more vital, effective, and meaningful your life is likely to become. Unfortunately, when we’re hooked by difficult thoughts, feelings, and situations, we often start making moves away from our values.
A simple example relates to addressing our emotions around an exercise routine. Focusing mostly on the tasks of exercise, like recording the minutes or the miles we run, can quickly lead to discouragement when we fail to complete our routine a few days in a row (not that I am speaking from experience!). Instead, we are more likely to be successful if we align our exercise with our values of being healthy and living a long life. Then, when we fail to exercise several days in a row and are frustrated with ourselves, we can use our values to get us out of our discouragement and back to exercising again.
The fourth movement is moving on. Instead of seeking a full-scale transformation of who we are, in this movement we make relatively minor adjustments based on what we learned about ourselves and our emotions in the second step and according to the values we have established from the third step. The “tweaks” can be in our mindset, our behaviors, our habits and our environment. For example, let’s say your team members are getting very frustrated or angry with each other because the team has established a norm that people won’t interrupt each other during meetings. However, in spite of establishing this norm, a few individuals persist in interrupting other team members. One tweak that may help your team is to add the “do not interrupt” norm to your meeting agenda template so everyone has a visible reminder of the standard you want to work by. It will also help if you spend a bit of time planning the steps that the team will take when someone interrupts. In this way, it is easier to implement your plan since everyone agreed to it beforehand. It turns out that there are countless tweaks that I have found useful for myself and the teams I coach. Even though they are minor and relatively easy to implement, I have found that consistently applying them can make a significant difference in how individuals and teams function. I am eager to explore several of them with you in my next few articles.
References:
David S. Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life. Avery, 2016.
Walker S. Order Out of Chaos. Harvard Business Review Press, 2024.