Emotion is data

In the B2B world, we tend to think of emotion as frosting on the cake – a luxury. It’s a nice topping, but it’s definitely not part of the cake. Emotion is “soft” and interesting to talk about…but when the real decisions need to be made, bring in the droids and spreadsheets.

Turns out that is completely wrong.

When Antonio Damasio wrote his ground-breaking book, Descartes' Error, in 1995 the neuroscience community awakened to the reality that emotion is data, and that emotions are not the opposite of rationality, but rather play a critical role in rationality and normal social behavior.

In fact, one of the reasons he began studying emotion was when he observed patients who had lost the ability to emote and feel under certain circumstances. Many of them also had major impairments in their ability to make decisions. In essence, he showed that when emotion is removed, people become less rational, not more.

The problem is that the B2B world still largely operates with the 'droids & spreadsheets' notion of decision making. And it’s starting to be a real problem in our stakeholder engagement: business is now woefully behind the science.

Here is one thing you can do to bring this reality into your work:

Chase down human insights. When emotion becomes a key data point, as real as any other, then you will start looking at problems and solutions from a ‘human insights’ point of view. When you dive beneath the surface, you see people differently. For example:

• What else is going on with this customer beyond the spreadsheet? Are they driven by fear? Recognition? Conformity?

• What values are most important to our Factory Director? Is it tradition? Power? Achievement?

• How does our most influential policymaker perceive risk? What is most threatening? Is she willing to put her name on a bold, risky initiative?

Try to avoid the trap of seeing people as either rational or emotional in a binary way. We are all driven by emotion. The more you can tap into this reality and structure your future engagements with this in mind, the more effective your outcomes are likely to be.