Dave Kashen explains how emotions work as intelligence. A team's fear during an acquisition led them to uncover fraud. Sadness signals what to release, anger sets boundaries, fear highlights what to learn, and joy signals what to celebrate.
Also, emotions are themselves a source of intelligence. So like, you know, example of, um, you know, a team that was making an acquisition that looked really, really good on paper. Everyone, it just made logical sense. And somebody spoke up in a meeting, was like, I just want to say, you know, they had a culture that allowed this and welcomed it, like, I just, I noticed that constriction in my stomach. I noticed a little bit of fear every time we talk about this acquisition. And someone else was like, Actually, me too. And so like, okay, hold on, let's slow down a little bit. And they dug deeper and found fraud, right, through the acquisition. So there's a real like knowing other— yeah, knowing. It's like another source of intelligence. And honestly, that really got me because I, for a long time, I was like, happiness good, sadness bad, you know. I'm just— let me just, you know, maximize happiness. And then when I learned that emotions were a source of intelligence, you know, I really value intelligence. I was like, oh, I don't want to I don't want to, you know, miss out on one source of them. We talked a bit about the different kind of flavors of that, like sadness is showing what wants to be let go of. So like if a team doesn't feel sadness or if a CEO or founder doesn't feel sadness, they'll likely keep too many projects going or keep too many people on the team. They won't let go. You know, anger is boundary energy. It's helping you get clear about what you want and what's okay with you and your values. So there's a real, you know, with each emotion, you know, fear is telling you, okay, there's something to learn, something to pay attention to here. You know, and joy, you know, it's like there's something that wants to be celebrated, right? And that, you know, again, I find, you know, excitement, something wants to be created. I find most teams, you know, over-index on the quote-unquote— and it's important that we put in quotes because this is part of the issue, you know— negative stuff and, um, like actually block appreciation. Fear and anger are more common. Yeah, totally.
