42 •
The Lion King
• October - December 2015
Productivity
| The Emotional Bank Account
THE EMOTIONAL
BANK ACCOUNT
By Gabriel Odang
and effective.
But if you build a habit of showing
discourtesy, disrespect, overacting,
ignoring, arbitrariness, betrayals, or
pride, your emotional bank account
will soon be overdrawn. The trust level
will drop and even vanish.
And when trust is displaced, the
relationship drops into a mine field.
Everyone becomes suspicious and
every word becomes measured.
Many organizations are filled with this
situation. Also many families and mar-
riages are in this situation.
If a large reserve of trust is not sus-
tained by continuing deposits of cour-
tesy, kindness and love, a marriage
can deteriorate. Instead of rich, spon-
taneous understanding and commu-
nication, the situation becomes one of
accommodation, where two people
simply attempt to live independent
life-styles in a fairly respectful and tol-
erant way. The relationship may fur-
ther deteriorate to one of hostility and
defensiveness.
Remember that a quick fix is a mirage.
Building and repairing relationships
takes time.
It is hard not to get impatient. It takes
character to be proactive, to focus
on your circle of influence, to nurture
and grow. But there is really no quick
fix. Building and repairing relationships
is a long-term investment.
W
e all know what a financial
bank account is. We make
cash deposits into it and build
up a reserve, from which we can
make withdrawals, when we need
to. An Emotional Bank Account is a
metaphor that describes the amount
of trust that has been built up in a
relationship. It is the feeling of safeness
when you are with the other human
being.
If you make deposits into an emotional
bank account through courtesy, kind-
ness, honesty, and keeping to commit-
ments, you build up a reserve of trust.
With that trust established, you can
even make mistakes and that trust
level, that emotional reserve, will com-
pensate for it. When the trust account
is high, communication is easy, instant,
