BOOK REVIEW: Shift

“Shifts” Ethan Kross (Professor at the University of Michigan – Department of Psychology)
 “How to Manage Emotions so They Don’t Manage You”

 The appearance of the emotion is just the beginning, it is what we do or say or think that affects the ongoing nature of the emotion.  We are all born with the capacity to manage our emotions, what most of have never been taught are the specific strategies that allow us to stop the trajectory of our emotional responses and change them.

Kross uses the image of a Russian Doll to describe what emotional shifters are like, they live inside us in similar nesting layers, building on each other to affect our emotional lives

Through a combination of psychological theory and real life scenarios the author explores a number of different strategies including:

a) Tuning into our senses and choosing activities that leverage positive emotions and posing questions such as “Which one or two senses of the five senses pack the biggest punch?” “Which one comes at the lowest cost?” Paying attention to how sights, sounds, taste, feel and smell influence our responses to emotions

b) Changing perceptions – using the “pep talk” Djokovic apparently gave himself when losing to an opponent “you can do this” “Believe in yourself” – by using “you” to silently refer to yourself or “distanced self talk” , gives you distance and helps shift your perspective. And is called the Solomon paradox. The choice you have is the perspective you take.

c) Environment – the landscapes we occupy shape our lives in all kinds of indirect ways, our environment directly pulls on our senses, attention, and perspective shifters as well. Is our environment (physical, personal) serving us – our choice is to change the space or modify it. The “space” could be somewhere “local” – a favourite spot in your garden, a comfy chair in your favourite room

d) Supportive Conversations – Emotions are like viruses – As deeply social creatures we routinely turn to other people to help shift our perspective, allow us to reframe, positively distract and soothe our nervous system. Not enough to simply provide the space for rumination – empathy and validation (avoiding sympathy and collusion) must be balanced with helping to shift perspectives, sounds like coaching to me! The author describes this 2 pronged approach as cognitive support. Kross shares an interesting insight around comparison to others – maintaining that it is not necessarily a rudimentary status ladder with one metric determining who is “above” or “below”  – we can still hold the two concepts that we may be more skilled than others in some areas, less skilled in others.  This thinking has implications for leaders establishing effective teams, by leveraging individual strengths and accomodating a variety of these.

e) Referring to the Russian Doll analogy, Kross considers culture to be the outermost layer, filtering down through all the inner layers described above – incorporating the sensations, attentions and perspective shifts, the influence on emotions of the spaces we inhabit, how they affect these internal shifters, expanded to the humans around us and how the relationships move emotions around. Because it is in the air we breathe, it can be either the foundation of emotional wellness or the reason for ongoing distress. How do we lean on culture when it is healthy and what do we do when it is not?

Finally, he introduces as framework which could be a supplement to our toolkit as coaches – acronym WOOP – Gabrielle Oettingen (a German born psychologist) devised these stages:

Wish – visualise specifically what you desire, something important, challenging but feasible)

Outcome – the best thing about achieving that wish and what it will make you feel

Obstacle – main challenge (exterior or interior to you)

Her husband Peter Gollwitzer, noticed the missing question “How does this overcome the obstacles?”

Plan – building a plan around the obstacle – using IF and Then as stimuli for thought (hypothetical to practical) -What action are you going to take when faced with this obstacle?

In the context of coaching, this resembles GROW and aligns with the solution focused approach, however, in my opinion, a coach would need to intentionally integrate the various strategies described above to leverage and enhance the impact of the framework.

Virginia Raymond
14.09.2025

NOTE:
We encourage our coaches and learners to continually expand their knowledge by engaging with a wide range of reading and resources, broadening perspective and deepening understanding.