Author Maya Angelou said “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” That’s a pretty powerful statement and yet it’s so true. How people feel drives how they think and act.
Studies show the significant impact of emotions on how people perform in tasks, how engaged and creative they are, how committed they are to their organisations and how they make decisions. This also applies to customers and key stakeholders. Yet we’re often shy about talking about feelings in the workplace.
In my Facilitation 101 workshop, I use an exercise adapted from the Emotional Culture Deck and ask participants to identify the feelings they want their participants to feel when they attend a meeting, workshop, induction, brainstorm session or presentation facilitated by them. The exercise is intended to help participants include this intention in their planning rather than leaving it to chance.
My insight is that we want others to feel what we most value for ourselves.
Here is the mighty list of Feeling words (or F words) compiled by the participants. Several feelings were chosen by more than one person so additional votes are shown below. What would you add?
- Connected plus 5 votes
- Energised plus 4 votes
- Inspired plus 3 votes
- Supported plus 3 votes
- Optimistic plus 3 votes
- Appreciated plus 2 votes
- Confident plus 1 vote
- Non-Judgmental plus 1 vote
- At Ease
- Curious
- Equal
- Open
- Proud
- Restless
- Spontaneous
- Thoughtful
- Involved
Photo by Cosiela Borta on Unsplash