Quantums, spinning plates and emotional intelligence
Les McMinn University of Surrey
How on earth do you make sense of a vague idea – in my case a SCEPTrE Fellowship – and turn it in to something academically acceptable when you have a series of momentous events in your life? How on earth do you develop ideas on emotional intelligence (particularly when your own life is distinctly emotionally un-intelligent) in an institution that at times doesn’t readily feel as though it wants to hear the term but you feel, right inside yourself, that this does make some kind of sense? How do you also develop you own job and broader contribution to the University – in my case by leading the University Counselling Centre in a new and more radical direction? And why had I chosen to call my Fellowship ‘Quantum Learning’???
Complexity, mess, chaos, divorce, leadership, ill-health, radical agendas, sustainable lifestyles, staff development, psychological therapies, depression, emotional wellbeing, infection, research, anxiety, management, fear of failure, brilliant ideas, competing interests, moving home, loss, hospital, absence, new relationships…..this is just a snapshot of some of the words and senses that were washing around.
The fact that all of this was unplanned just added to the rich mixture that was already my life. It felt at times as though I was facing several ways at once. At other times maybe it was more like a set of spinning plates that just had to be kept going for fear of them all, not just one of them, crashing to the ground. The situation appeared to be demanding immersion of me – the more I resisted by trying to compartmentalise the various strands of life and work, the more I was be(un)calmed and unable to move.
This was all new territory – familiar in others’ lives and something as a psychotherapist and consultant I could work with. I was very good at encouraging others to ‘be alive’ and immerse themselves in their lives more fully. But somewhat to my surprise I found all aspects of my life merging and coalescing in to one significant entity. Large and unwieldy at first – what I had thought of as something structured and contrapuntal like Bach had turned in to a disturbingly atonal Schoenberg.
What was being asked of me was to hold together significant areas of uncertainty and simultaneously see a new picture emerge. In a repeat cycle of something akin to action learning, I thought, sketched diagrams, captured ideas, gave up, started again, had the occasional epiphany - as one does? – stopped completely, restarted and finally one day I gave up trying to be smart and faced reality.
I realised that all this chaos was in fact me-at-work and actually, doing some quite good work actually. I had accumulated, and been informed by, a collection of over 300 publications from a broad sweep of literature in areas as diverse as emotional economics, sustainable development, future thinking, positive psychology, quantum science and social intelligence. I had talked widely and consulted both within the organisation and without, interestingly with a range of individuals who were not solely aligned to higher education but had experience in other sectors. I had tested ideas and re-framed them and out of this a single entity had emerged through integrating the two ‘work’ areas that I had been keeping separate – the modernisation of the Counselling Centre and the SCEPTrE ‘Quantum Learning’ fellowship. What had then emerged was the idea for a new Centre for Wellbeing and Development in the university, that would provide a unique place for students and staff to develop and reflect on their own experiences of wellbeing and emotional development. It would set out to balance out multiple needs in an increasingly complex and challenging organisation and would add real value to the institution, by making an impact on a much broader range of individuals and activities than before.
The learning was quite dramatic – in particular how frustrating the process is, particularly when you try and force ideas. The concept had been at least five years in the making – an extensive gestation period by any standards. It became an attempt to articulate the case, probably novel in UK Universities at this time, for a radically different way of working. At its heart lies the notion that for any complex organisation to work optimally, the needs of individuals and the whole organisation need to be considered at one and the same time, and the health of the latter is heavily influenced by the wellbeing of the former.
So what lessons can be drawn and inform others? That enquiry is a complex process, somewhat easier to understand and interpret after the event?? That it involves being open (intellectually and emotionally) to the various responses that are generated during a particular piece of work. That not everyone has a shared understanding of the nature of enquiry. That creativity is both (apparently??) valued in an academic setting but equally is challenging and involves the taking of risks (both personal and institutional). This raises issues around our ability/capacity to cope with failure and of managing our anxieties when we move out of our comfort zone.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.