When to Leave Emotion at the Door:

In business, it sometimes pays to leave emotion at the door, for a variety of reasons.   Let’s look at some great examples of making decisions (and taking action) for the right reason.  

Emotion has its place.   You want to be passionate about your business and to convey that to your customers.   You want your customers to buy from you and may well use emotion to close the deal.  However, there are some times when you need to step back from your emotional self in business in order to achieve the best results or outcome. 

You just have to buy it!! The emotion of desire.  Whether it’s the latest and greatest in technology, or a new work vehicle or perhaps that exceptional salesperson who is selling a gazillion dollar advertising plan.   Sometimes you need to leave that emotion of desire and want outside and start basing decisions purely on the facts that you have uncovered doing great due diligence. 

A customer complaint. The emotion may be annoying, anger or even hurt.   Try to remember that this is just business.   If someone complains, it’s not about you personally; it’s about an aspect of the business. Plus a complaint is actually a great opportunity to rectify. When a client leaves silently, that is the worse situation as you have no opportunity to correct the issue and win them back.  

Negotiations. You really want something to go your way, but things are not heading the direction you want. You may feel frustrated or even panicked. This is where particularly that ‘cooler heads prevail’.   If you are trying to win perhaps a large contract, then absolutely now is not the time to be panicked.  

Sacking a staff member. I can still remember the first person I had to dismiss. I remember that feeling, even almost 15 years ago, and was actually surprised. I think I was more upset about the need to sack that person than what they actually were being sacked about. Again, you need to leave emotion at the door. You might feel ‘bad’ having to take away their livelihood. Or perhaps they did the wrong thing by you and hence sacked. I’ve known situations like that where the business owner doesn’t want to pay the employees super. Regardless of your feelings, or how much trouble that person causes, you still have to meet your employee obligations. 

Annoyance with your team. Staff sometimes can be demanding. I don’t mean this in a bad or nasty way; it’s simply that they often need assistance, guidance, direction or clarify about process or policy. They need this information, direction and supervision from you, their leader. You’re busy, you’ve explained it before (probably to a different person) and you’re just over it all.   Your frustration mounts and possibly becomes aggravation. Your staff ask a question and get their head bitten off.   Keep this up and pretty soon they won’t be asking you questions – either because they have quit OR they just have a guess and possibly guess incorrectly.   Ditch that annoyance and learn patience and remind yourself that they are just trying to do their job. As their boss or leader, it’s your job to help them in this process.  

Holding back due to fear. Fear is a very powerful emotion and often business owners don’t “take the plunge” due to fear of failure. To run a specific advertising campaign which might cost $3,000 and fear of losing that money might stop some people. However, imagine you (after thoroughly researching the option) gain a $200K job … wouldn’t it be worth it? Imagine if you didn’t advertise and didn’t gain that work?   Sometimes we miss out on great opportunities because we hold that fear close to our hearts. I am in no way advocating that you make risky decisions, but ask yourself why you are holding back.   Is the fear you are feeling borne of wisdom, or simply because change is a little scary?

So if emotion is causing you grief (pun intended) in your business … then practice removing that emotion and making decisions based more on the facts and needs of the situation. A little less emotion might just be the ticket!

ABOUT THE EXPERT
Donna Stone is a business coach with three decades of experience. She shares this knowledge and expertise with clients to guide them in their own success. Donna works with business owners to help them build up their business with the view to selling it in – whether that be in 3 months’ time or 3 years’ time. She is the author of the Stepping Stone series of books. Visit www.donna-stone.com.au.