What are today’s employers looking for?  According to the Job Outlook Survey conducted by the National Association of Employers (2013), the second most important quality, after leadership, is problem solving.

Scientists note two different types of “distractions.”  I’ll also note that these “distractions” could also be labeled, “problems.”  They are sensory and emotional.  Sensory problems are part of your working world: a flat tire, a frozen computer, your Facebook account is hacked.  Emotional problems are those that linger in your emotional realm.  These can be caused by a sensory problem that hits you particularly hard or, particularly, through a relational difficulty.  Daniel Goleman, a prolific writer on EQ, notes that our brain gives preference to emotional problems, not sensory ones.  Emotional problems tend to consume us.  If my computer dies and I didn’t back up my hard drive I may be disappointed, but I may set about doing my best to remedy the problem as best I can and it doesn’t hijack my emotions.  I am able to focus on other tasks and the problem does not linger in my emotions. Yet, if I receive a caustic email from someone, or a negative comment comes my way, I can’t seem to be “ok” until I deal with the problem.  It lingers in my thoughts. Emotional problems are the problems that tend to cripple us and keep us from living all of life to its fullest.  We don’t function well, relationally or  vocationally, when we are consumed by an emotional problem. They linger and debilitate us in many areas outside the activating event (problem that triggered the emotion).

Stein and Book define problem solving as, “the ability to find solutions to problems in situations where emotions are involved, and to understand how emotions impact decision making” (Stein and Book, 2011, p. 166).   In both the personal and professional lives we live, more of us need to be better problems solvers, both in the sensory and emotional realms.

Emotional problems tend to find their way into many other areas of our lives. Therefore, it is not hard to understand how EQ qualities like emotional self-awareness and impulse control also affect our ability to manage and solve problems. The attached exercise, if observed, can help us in our abilities to solve problems in the sensory and emotional world in which we live.