Emotional banking

Finally made it to Toledo City and the People’s Development Agency where Fr. Paking Silva is running a second “survival session” for the electric cooperatives. I thought I would be meeting again with the general managers who took part in the first survival session in September. It turned out that the GMs had been asked to send prospective action officers for this course.

Roughly one half of the participants were meeting me for the first time. After the video conference with the board members at NEA, I was asked to tell again the story of how I got to know and appreciate the rural electrification movement. I ended with the usual challenge for them to communicate well the first part of the electric coops’ story and pursue their mandate and mission of electrifying the remaining 1738 rural barangays, and connecting the hundreds of thousand of households beyond the current 7.6 million.

But the second challenge is the bigger one, and the reason why they were gathered for a “survival session.” How will the electric coops who have been organized primarily for service gear themselves to survive in the new competitive environment ushered in by EPIRA?

Afterwards, I whispered to Eric Bucoy, the general secretary of NAGMEC, that we should design a special training program for GMs of electric coops, borrowing a phrase from Alan Greenspan’s book: Managing in turbulent times.

The PDA seminars are anchored by Fr. Silva, and they are usually a mix of powerpoint presentations, survey results from past batches, videos of EC activities, exchange of experiences and ideas among the participants, and commentaries, stories, and exhortations from Fr. Silva. The daily schedule is demanding; the day starts at 7:30 am and ends at 10 pm or later. Graduates from previous courses tease one another about having survived Paking’s “concentration camp.”

What is unique about the PDA, which I wish I could have for a future folk high school, is that it is located within the compound of an electric coop, Cebeco III. Every morning and especially during “solidarity evenings” the coop personnel serenade us with their songs, and show us in different ways the “culture” that Fr. Paking cites as one of the key factors for sustaining team spirit and quality service. Participants learn a lot from observing the facilities and daily activities of an award-winning coop, and from informal conversations with the meter readers, linesmen, finance staff, section chiefs and department heads.

Even in normal times, managing an electric coop is quite a challenge; it has become even more challenging with the turbulent transition ushered in by EPIRA. Fr. Paking admits that he has no formal training in management, and prefers to call himself a philosopher and leader. But he has used this to advantage, and his unorthodox style and approaches have drawn grudging admiration even from those who are not satisfied with how he articulates it.

Happiness bank

In the previous survival session, he expounded on the idea that we should develop “happy warriors.” At this morning’s session, he asked the Cebeco staff to carry what I thought was a learning prop into the hall. It turned out to be a big deposit box, painted to look like a bank office. The sign read Bangko Cebeco ng Kalipay, Cebeco Bank of Happiness.

He explained that the project is the result of a series of brainstorming. Every day, every person in Cebeco III is asked to think: How do I make someone happy? The next day, they write what they have done and deposit it in the “bank of happiness.” Later they added a second question: Who has made me happy?

In the daily RQIM interactive broadcast, samples of these deposits are read out. Although it is barely a month old, the experiment seems to be working. One Cebeco department head told me that it may be a small thing, but since everyone starts the day thinking of how to make someone else happy, it sets a positive tone for the whole day.

Fr. Paking further explained that the project combines ideas from different sources, and that one source was a topic I talked about in 2003. Turning to me, he said, “Tell them about emotional banking.”

Although I have gotten used to his style of suddenly calling on any one in the room to comment on his talk, I still get surprised.

Anyway, I told the participants that I first read the idea of “emotional banking” from Stephen Covey. He wrote that every day, without our being aware of it, we engage in many emotional transactions e.g. we smile and greet our partner in the morning – that is a deposit. We ignore her at breakfast while poring over the papers – that is a withdrawal, and so on through the days, and weeks, and months.

I experienced a “moment of zen” when I first read this passage from Covey. I thought it explained why sometimes, when I had to leave home for an unscheduled meeting or a trip, my partner would send me off with a smile, but other times she would raise quite a fuss that I felt was out of proportion.

In both cases, leaving without advance notice amounts to a similar form of “withdrawal.” I could understand her different reactions based on whether I still had a lot of “deposits” in my emotional account when I made the withdrawal, or whether I had very little left; much worse, if I was overdrawn.

Most men in the audience usually react with a smile of recognition. Some told me they have applied the lesson to good use. When they anticipate a major withdrawal in the near future, they take pains to build up their deposit. They tell me it works.

But I remind them that it works only if we realize that it is our partner, not us, who will judge whether what we are doing is an emotional deposit, or not. They laugh knowingly when I observe that wives tend to suspect husbands who unexpectedly give them special gifts.: “They think you have done something wrong, feel guilty, and are making amends.”

If we had time, we could have pursued the emotional banking metaphor and distinguish between short-term checking and savings account, and long-term time deposits.

After the session, a young participant from Batangas came up to me and shook my hands: “Thank you for the lessons on emotional banking,” he said. “I can apply it to many parts of my life.” I smiled back, but wondered what he meant.

Probably similar to what a much older participant told me later. “What you said about having an overdrawn account is so true,” he confessed. “That’s what happened to my previous relationships. But I have consciously applied the lessons to my present partner, and we’re OK.”

Explore posts in the same categories: Power and energy