The power of a practical PAUSE

I recently had the results of my emotional capitalist assessment. If you’ve not come across this before, it’s a great tool where you rate yourself against 10 emotional intelligence competencies and then ask others to do the same. Based on the principles of Martyn Newman, it can then help you understand where to grow your emotional intelligence with a specific focus on leadership. The book that explains these 10 competencies is one of my top recommendations on my leadership courses – it really is both insightful and practical.

So having got my results I wanted to ‘walk the walk’ myself. I wanted to make sure this didn’t become a report that got filed away without proper action. I put aside 30 minutes a day and re-read my results in smaller sections to try and take the feedback on board. But I had this niggling thought that even though I felt like I was approaching this in a thoughtful way, what happens when I’m faced with a situation in real-time? It’s easy to think my reflections will link to different actions, but I felt I needed something more robust to ensure I acted differently.

I had come across the PAUSE method before. It has quite a number of iterations and can be used in coaching and emotional support. But I felt it was something I could use when I recognised I was having a knee-jerk reaction to a situation.

It starts with a literal pause. Easier said than done when a deadline is looming, or a situation is spiralling. But a brief period of deep breathing can reset the vagus nerve, reducing anxiety and helping us think more rationally. By deliberately slowing down breathing we signal to our brains that we are safe and de-escalate our feelings of threat. I’m no expert on breathing techniques but the one I’ve tried I call the 555. I breathe in to the count of 5, hold to the count of 5, and breathe out to the count of 5. And yes, you’ve guessed it, I repeat it 5 times too. I can see the benefit to more robust techniques, but in truth I think I would struggle to commit to longer breathing activities. Even when I go through this exercise, I am fighting the urge to give up and get stuck into the solution. But by the end of the 555, I am in a much better place. So, it works well for me to take a pause but put a time boundary on it too.

I then start asking questions. Not about the situation, but about myself. What am I feeling? Naming our emotions can be quite a strong way to build emotional awareness. Our emotional response can struggle with language and tangibles – so this is a good place to start. If the answer is that I’m feeling fear, I can also acknowledge that this is tough and think about what I can do to prevent this feeling any worse.

The next step is to understand why I feel this way. What exactly am I worried about? What is at the core of the problem? I have seen this positioned as “uncovering the trigger”, and although I can see this makes sense, for me the language is too trauma-based. And given I am trying to de-escalate what could become a drama this doesn’t help me! So instead, this is a time for seeking to deepen my understanding, and that can feel a very healthy step.

Often a kneejerk reaction happens for me because I’ve had something unexpected from a colleague or client, and usually this is actually over email or a Teams message which means I have the time to think before firing off a reply. Having worked through the above steps I try and then and see their point of view. I ask myself what else is going on in their world? What mood might they have been in when they sent the message? Sometimes the timing can be a clue, especially if sent late at night or early in the morning. For someone I struggle to relate to, I try and answer these questions in the first person to see if that helps, or if they’re someone I will work with a lot I might seek other’s perspectives to see if that might help me build some more empathy and understanding.

And then lastly, I engage in a response. But I try to do this in an informed way. Does my reply help or hinder the situation? I try and picture a tennis game too and if I can reply in a way that means we prevent a ‘rally’ then that’s preferable, but equally I don’t want to look too closed and fire off an ‘ace’ that I think will win the game. That’s not the goal here. It’s about making sure the reply can bring the situation to a close as swiftly and smoothly as possible.

I find this helps, and the more I do it, the more I then do it on autopilot, but I can’t admit to this always working for me. So, if you’re reading this and have had a reply from me recently you might be calling b******! But I do feel it has helped make me feel more thoughtful about my online comms and less stressed by situations. If I can improve this further, even if just be 5% each year I can see that making a big difference.

So, PAUSE:

·       Pause and breathe

·       Ask yourself what you’re feeling?

·       Understand what’s why you feel this way

·       See the situation from their perspective

·       Engage with deliberate thought