When Adrianne Lenker, the lead singer of Big Thief, sat down for an interview about her band’s wildly successful new album, she attributed their success to something interesting. Not, as you might expect, to how hard the band worked or how talented they were (though both are true). Instead, she pointed to the work they do to foster a healthy emotional dynamic. “The process of making a record, or doing anything as a group of people, it’s never in a vacuum,” she said. “It’s all of our individual lives just smooshed right up against each other. All emotions happening.”
Lenker insisted that her band’s success hinges on their ability to recognize and manage their emotions. She went on to touch on two important ways in which her band’s emotional intelligence dictated their success.
Takeaway 1: Emotions & Performance Are Intertwined.
In a world obsessed with performance and productivity, the value of emotions gets underplayed. But, as Lenker says, her band’s emotions “are the record.”
It turns out there’s great research to back up Lenker’s way of thinking. One study looked at 138 leaders across 66 different organizations and found that higher EQ was related to increased team creativity. EQ helped in two critical areas: Increasing people’s ability to self-regulate against criticism and increased empathy.
In addition to creativity, another premiere measure of productivity and performance is the amount of time you spend in a state of flow. Flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” It’s so intense that you actually lose track of even basic needs like hunger and using the bathroom. And, of course, the impact on your productivity is immense. Research by McKinsey shows that employees who regularly work in a state of flow are at least five times as productive as other employees.
Achieving a flow state is largely a matter of striking the right balance in your emotions:
- You must be engaged, not bored.
- You must be challenged, not overwhelmed.
It makes sense then, that Big Thief doesn't set their sights on fame, or even on mastery. Instead, the band focuses on their chemistry, knowing the results will follow. “It’s not about being rock and roll where we just get as good as we can get and be as big as we can get. It’s way more about learning to pay attention to where we’re at, learning how to be better friends to each other, and make space,” Lenker explained.
Takeaway 2: You Can’t Cast Your Emotions Aside.
Lenker emphasized that you can’t just set your band’s emotions to the side. “There’s no way I’ve found to set it aside and just make music…It never works like that.” She continued, “If someone’s going through something difficult, if someone needs extra time in the morning, if there’s a conversation that needs to be had… that all becomes part of making your record.”
Simply setting your emotions to the side can have a catastrophic effect—on both the individual and the team. That’s because repressed emotions have a way of clawing their way back. As psychoanalyst Hilary Jacobs Hendel writes, “Emotions have energy that pushes up for expression, and to tamp them down, our minds and bodies use creative tactics—including muscular constriction and holding our breath.”
Suppressed emotions can even manifest as physical pain. Dr. John Sarno, a pioneer in mind-body medicine, has drawn a powerful link between unresolved emotions and an experience of physical pain called Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS). His audacious claim is that he can heal some 80% of all back pain by addressing patients’ underlying emotions. While there’s been debate about the number 80%, the science has caught up to Sarno, showing that back pain (and other types of pain) frequently are caused by strong emotions. Unknowingly we attribute our pain to a specific injury—the moment you stood up from your chair, lifted a baby, or stepped awkwardly on a rock. But Dr. Sarno points out that many of these supposed “injuries” are TMS attacks, your brain sending pain to your body to avoid confronting uncomfortable emotions. To treat TMS pain, you have to treat the emotion.
One Simple Strategy To Practice
You don’t have to be an EQ master to improve your productivity and confront your emotions head-on. In fact, the simplest way to practice both is by stopping periodically throughout the day to label your emotions. To get started, use an emotion wheel like the one below. Start at the center of the wheel. Label your emotion from the first seven options at the center of the wheel. Move out one level from there, then one more. Do this each time you shift to a new task, and soon you won’t need the wheel at all.
